


All The Songs In The World

by alexdamien



Series: Remade Anew [17]
Category: Saint Seiya
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Blood and Injury, Character Death, M/M, Reincarnation, Vampires, Violence, beware that last tag I don't lie but I also don't tell the whole truth, just take all my tags and warnings seriously ok?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:42:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 31
Words: 27,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27643627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexdamien/pseuds/alexdamien
Summary: After getting chased out of Aioros' castle, Kanon goes looking for Saga to find comfort and protection. But instead he'll find himself thrown into the middle of a war he never knew of and have to meet someone he never thought he would see again.Fic updates Mondays and Fridays. Please read and consider the warning in the first chapter.
Relationships: Aquarius Camus/Scorpio Milo, Aries Mū/Virgo Shaka, Aries Shion & Libra Dohko, Cancer Deathmask/Pisces Aphrodite, Capricorn Shura/Sagittarius Aiolos, Gemini Kanon/Wyvern Rhadamanthys
Series: Remade Anew [17]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1633726
Comments: 97
Kudos: 18





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! If you are reading this, then I'm guessing you're one of the very few people who have been following the Remade Anew series. Thanks for that and congrats for finally making it to the last installment of the series, but before you start I need to give you a warning: This is gonna be sad. This is gonna be very sad. But I will promise you now that this (like all my stories) will have a happy ending. BUT you'll have to follow me to the end to get it.  
> I'm sorry! I didn't expect this to happen, but that's how it came out. I made my best effort, I promise U.U  
> Also, a million thanks to CallieParis who caught all of my mistakes and was incredibly encouraging throughout the writing of this story. I don't know what I would have done without your help!

Kanon flew fast. To the edge of the darkness created by the Night Towers of Aioros’ castle, and then he hid in a cave until true night fell on him. He couldn’t sense anyone coming after him, and he counted it as a blessing that Aioros was more interested in retaking the castle than in chasing him down.

So he flew again.

Alone.

With the only direction he had, now that he had lost it all, and he started looking for that soul that was so much like his. That soul that he could find anywhere in the world.

Saga.

* * *

His brother had changed castles since the last he’d seen him, five years ago, so it still took a bit more effort to find him. But there was nowhere that Saga could run where Kanon couldn’t find him. So he finally located him, in a ruined old fortress he had taken over. His forces now seemed quite meager as Kanon oversaw them from the sky.

Up in the highest tower, he noticed a small form walking at the top, looking up at the clouds, long hair fluttering in the wind that Kanon would recognize anywhere. With a sigh of relief, he descended on the tower to find Saga frowning at him.

“Hey,” he tried to say, but his wounds kept bleeding, and he crumbled to the ground when his legs couldn’t support him anymore. He looked up from where he had fallen, and noticed Saga seemed much thinner than before. Deep dark circles under his eyes and a gaunt expression, which both made him look so much older. “What happened to you?”

Saga scoffed and bent down to pull him up and carry him in his arms.

“Me? You’re covered in blood. Is it yours?” he asked, annoyed, carrying him inside.

Kanon let his head fall against Saga’s chest.

“Sucks, but yeah,” he sighed. Now that he wasn’t focused on fleeing, he realized how much every single part of his body hurt.

“Who did this to you?” asked Saga

“Aioros.”

“What?!”

“Heheh, guess who is also a vampire, uh?”

Saga took a deep breath. “That should not have happened,” he whispered.

“In my defense, I didn’t know it was him when I took over his castle. It was just pretty cool to discover it after I chased him out. But he got reinforcements. A hell of a lot of reinforcements.”

Saga grunted and shook his head.

“Aioros...he should not be alive. He never survives, but...I might have killed him too soon. It’s all happening so fast. We all might have been born too late,” he mused, descending through staircase after staircase with Kanon in his arms.

“Look, I don’t have the energy to make sense of your weird self-talk. Can you just...let me stay here for a few days? Maybe eat your most useless man? Just one and I’ll be fine, I’m sure you can spare one,” said Kanon, grasping at Saga’s tunic.

Saga huffed and shook his head again.

“Not this time,” he said, and opened a door.

Kanon realized the air had become stuffy and there were no more windows around them. They were in the dungeons of the castle.

“Please tell me you’re not going to be a goddamn bastard now,” begged Kanon, trying to move. But he was too weak. He had lost too much blood.

“Destiny approaches,” said Saga, kicking open a coffin. “And I have no more time for your betrayals. Your time will come after mine.”

He dumped Kanon in the coffin and closed it. Then he nailed it shut. Inside, Kanon yelled, hitting against the lid with the little strength he still had. He tried to use his magic to disperse, even though he knew coffins and running water were the two things he could not escape. He willed his form to shift, to fade as smoke through the cracks in the coffin, but it was useless.

He kept screaming.

Then begging.

Then crying.


	2. Chapter 2

Mu’s nightmares became more incomprehensible. Stranger, yet far more defined in the terror they evoked as the days passed.

This time, he found himself dreaming that he fled the sanctuary.

Which sanctuary? Where? Why?

He could only tell why.

Because Shion was dead.

And he cried and cried all the way through his escape. Passing through hills and mountains, his rage and loss waking even the dead that arose behind him as he passed.

The souls of the dead dragging behind their corpses. All of the warriors lost from wars long gone cried out with him.

 _“Shion is dead! Shion is dead!”_ he yelled in his head and the horror of it echoed in his dream and in the spirits of the dead that saw him pass by.

Mu opened his eyes, staring up at Shion’s concerned face and gasping for breath.

“It was a nightmare. Mu, listen, you were having a nightmare,” he said, patting his head.

Mu took several deep breaths and held onto the blankets. He looked around, noticing the tapestries and embroidered cloths that hung around his tent.

“You’ve had so many nightmares lately,” said Shion, helping him sit up on the bed and handing him a glass of milk.

It took Mu a couple moments to be able to speak.

“Sorry, I just...this one was so real and so...strange,” he said.

“I was dead in that dream, from what I heard,” said Shion, nodding.

“It was awful, but I don’t even know why. I just know that I was running away from something because you were dead, and I ran through a field of corpses and wandering souls. And I was wearing some kind of armor...”

Shion patted his head.

“Ah, you really are too young to be having those dreams,” he said. “Sixteen is too young for so many things. But come on, drink that and get up. You’ll be late to bring Shaka the things you wanted to give him, and I want you back by midday. Dohko is arriving tonight.”

“You mean I’m arriving now! Hi!” said Dohko, pushing aside the cover of the entrance to the tent and strolling inside. “So here you were. Hi Mu! You look a bit sick.”

Mu shook his head. The images and feelings of the dream already fading in his mind.

“I’m fine, just some bad dreams,” he said and jumped out of the bed. “I’ll get ready to go see Shaka!”

He ran out the tent smiling.

“Bring him for dinner! Get him down from that hideout!” called Dohko after him.

Shion frowned at seeing him leaving. “I don’t like those nightmares he’s been having,” he said and exited the tent.

“You used to have them too when you were his age. Isn’t it all because of those weird mind powers you have?” asked Dohko, following him outside.

People hurried around, running to see the companions of Dohko’s caravan that had arrived shortly before dawn. Shion led him to his own tent, near Mu’s, and pushed away the intricate tapestry covering the entrance for Dohko to pass through.

“Well, you’ve been busy I see!” said Dohko with a whistle. Around him, covering every surface and even pinned to the tapestries of the ceiling, laid dozens of star charts, detailing the movements of planets, constellations, and other heavenly bodies.

Shion stepped inside after him, closing the tent and lighting a couple more lamps around them.

“I can’t help it. These stars of misfortune, they are aligning. It’s like I can see death in the stars,” he said, taking a seat on one of the cushions not covered by papers and making space for Dohko to sit down next to him.

“You should spend less time with your head up in the stars and more with it here on the earth,” said Dohko, nuzzling his neck.

“I can see the earth through the stars,” said Shion, and held up a chart. “Look, here are your stars. And here are mine. They cross each other today, so I knew you were arriving.”

“You were off by a few hours. That’s strange in you. But I like the idea of crossing stars,” said Dohko, wrapping an arm around Shion’s waist, enjoying the feel of his body under the long tunic he wore.

“You idiot,” sighed Shion, when Dohko started kissing his neck.

“It’s been a year,” he said, pushing him down over the charts covered carpets.

Shion laid down, his cheeks burning, yet he could feel his body reacting to Dohko’s scent. To the warmth of his body. It had been a long year of waiting for the caravan to return.

He bit his lower lip, unsure for only half a second, before he caught a glimpse of Dohko’s playful smirk illuminated by the soft light of the lamps, and he spread his legs.

The longing for him was too strong, and the dread of knowing that those two constellations would not cross again for hundreds of years, even stronger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a weird dream about reading the future in the stars and using that as a blueprint for life. I feel like Shion would approve. 
> 
> Hope you guys enjoy this! As always, for my blog and writing updates, go on to alexdamien.worpress.com and you can find me on wattpad as @alxdamien. On wattpad you can also see a few original drabbles and stories I've written for contests.


	3. Chapter 3

Kanon spent the night trapped in the coffin.

Then the day. And yet another night. He knew them because of the times when his body fell into the sleep of day and awoke to the whisper of night.

But as hard as he hit against the coffin, it still wouldn’t budge.

While cursing his brother, Kanon held his resentment for this cruelty in his heart, adding it on to so many other resentments he had accumulated against him. For having to live hidden in his shadow, for the imprisonment he brought on him, for his death.

He laid in the coffin and counted his resentments like beautiful old swords he longed to use against Saga.

Until one night, he heard voices outside. Yelling, crying, the crashing of steel against steel. All those sounds came clearly to his sharp vampire ears.

It seemed like whatever Saga had been fearing, it had finally caught up to him. Kanon couldn’t help a sneer of satisfaction, before it was crushed by worry. He looked deep into his own soul, into the connection they shared since birth, wondering if anything may have happened to him. But he could still feel his presence in the world. Far away, but still alive.

Someone kicked his coffin, and Kanon bit his lower lip to keep himself from making any noise.

“What’s in here?” asked a youthful, commanding voice that Kanon didn’t recognize.

“Coffins, my lord Aiakos. This place is full of them,” answered yet another voice, closer to Kanon.

“Then check them all! He might be hiding in one of them. Then go check the other dungeon!”

Kanon rolled his eyes. It looked like there wouldn’t be any luck for him that night, either.

He was starting to get pretty fed up with his rotten luck.

The lid of the coffin was torn off, and he looked up to see the face of a young man with short black hair that he had never seen before. He lifted an elegant eyebrow at him. By the overconfidence in his smirk and the gleaming black armor he wore, Kanon guessed this must be lord Aiakos.

“Finally found you,” said the lord, and lifted his sword to stab him.

Kanon vanished into the shadows, finally free from the constraint of the coffin. He floated in midair before them.

“How daring! You looked all over for death, and you have suddenly found it,” said Kanon, and grabbed a hold of the shadows to cover the little lord’s men and asphyxiate them, making them crumble to the ground like broken dolls. His wounds still hurt, still bled, but he was strong enough to get rid of a few puny humans. He bared his fangs at him, wanting to see him react at seeing himself alone.

But the little lord only grinned up at him, a strange manic grin to his eyes.

“You’re a slippery one, Saga. Who would have thought, you’ve become a vampire now? That was a surprise” said Aiakos, uncaring about the dead bodies of his men strewn around him.

Kanon didn’t bother to contradict him, used as he was at hiding his existence. He just extended his claws, ready to tear off this little master’s arrogant face.

Suddenly, something hit him from behind, slamming him against the floor.

“That’s not Saga. That’s Kanon, his twin brother,” said a deep voice, approaching Kanon. But he didn’t have any more energy to move.

“Oh, a twin? Hmmm, that sounds right,” said Aiakos, and grabbed Kanon by the hair, pulling up his face. “Where’s Saga?”

Kanon spat in his face. Aiakos slammed his head against the floor, and he fell unconscious.


	4. Chapter 4

Mu could teleport. It was one of the things that Shion has started to teach him since his powers bloomed, a couple years ago, and he had taken to it like a fish to water. So, climbing mount Relief near the village, was much simpler for him than for anyone else. It wasn’t a particularly pleasant feeling, the idea of compressing his form in one place and then transport it to another one, but way more pleasant that spending three days to accomplish the whole thing.

And it made visiting the monk at the top of the mount, much simpler. He hiked and teleported, hiked and teleported Always keeping his jumps as short as possible, to avoid any...inconveniences. He noticed something moving nearby, but when he looked over, there wasn’t anything there. He frowned, and decided to move on. He compressed his form, and jumped forth.

A childish laughter echoed.

“You can do this too!” it said, the voice fragmented, far away yet so close that Mu could feel a presence right by his side.

He reappeared and looked around, but he couldn’t see anything.

“Whoever you are, you’ll regret it if you don’t show yourself right now,” he called out to whoever was following him.

All he received as a reply was the echo of a laughter, coming from all directions at once. The sound of it approaching, retreating, as close as a whisper against his ear that fragmented and was suddenly far away when Mu turned to look.

He pursed his lips in concern. It wasn’t a trick he couldn’t do, but the fact that someone other than Shion and him could do the same thing was worrying. He stood firm, and sent a rain of telekinetic power around him. Small points of light flashed around him. As if the dust of the stars fluttered around him, until it hit something and he heard a cry behind a tree. He teleported there, and created a barrier around them to prevent the person from escaping. He expected a difficult fight.

He found a child instead.

A small child with fiery ginger hair about to bawl his eyes out. One of Mu’s telekinetic sparks had hit him in the stomach and he laid on the ground, clutching at it, his eyes full of tears but too shocked to actually cry.

Mu rushed to kneel down next to him and check for any other damage.

“Why did you hit me?!” cried the child, tears falling rolling down his cheeks.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I didn’t think you were...so small…,” said Mu, pushing some of his hair away from his face. He checked him carefully, but the boy seemed otherwise unharmed. “Where are your parents?”

“I don’t have any parents,” said the child, trying to stand up.

Mu picked him up and carried him in his arms.

“What do you mean? You can’t have no parents!”

“I used to have a mom, but one night she said she could no longer be my mom. I woke up in this mountain the next morning,” said the kid. “My name is Kiki. How can I get a mom now? Can she be my mom again?”

Mu stared down at the child in his arms. He seemed to have roughly the same age as he did when his own powers had started manifesting, and his parents had brought him to Shion’s care saying the same thing. That they could no longer be his parent.

He figured something like that must have happened to Kiki. He pursed his lips together in thought.

“I don’t know,” he said in the end. “But there’s someone we could ask. His name is Shion. Come, we’ll go see a friend of mine and then I’ll take you to Shion.”

The child stopped struggling and held on to him, grabbing at Mu’s tunic with his tiny hands. After a sigh of resignation, Mu made a final draw on his powers and transported them to the top of the mount, where the monastery rested.

Although monastery was a pretty big word for what awaited them at the top. It has been a bustling monastery once upon a time, way before Mu’s tribe settled at the base, but now only a bunch of ruined buildings remained, with a single inhabitant, who sat now in front of an open fire heating a pot of water for tea.

“Hi Shaka. You’re starting the tea early,” said Mu, walking towards him.

The monk nodded, his eyes remaining closed.

“It’s not early though. We’re running late now,” he said, standing up to take the boiling pot away from the fire.

“Uh? Late?” asked Mu, setting the basket on top of a large rock that they used as a table.

Kiki reached out and grabbed a handful of Shaka’s long golden hair and _pulled_.

“So pretty,” mused the child.

Mu grabbed his tiny wrist and struggled to tear him away.

“No! Don’t! Gods Shaka, I’m so sorry. I just found him and he doesn’t seem to have any family,” he muttered.

“It’s fine,” said the monk, more interested in the contents of the basket. He pulled out a meat filled bread and tore it in half. He smiled at the scents of the spiced meat filling his nose. “Dohko is here, uh? That’s good. I was worried he wouldn’t make it in time.”

“In time for what?” asked Mu, letting Kiki down and handing him another meat bun. He also grabbed one of the bottles of milk and handed it to him. “Oh, he said that you should come for dinner.”

“There won’t be any dinner, but we might make it to lunch,” said Shaka, taking a bite of his bun.

Mu huffed. Shaka was always too mysterious for him, but he could never get angry or annoyed at him. It felt to him as if Shaka living in his own timeline, where everything happened in its due times. Often, he wished he had that same unhurried feeling about life.

He turned around, looking at the early morning sky, and noticed a column of smoke rising nearby.

“Uh? What’s that?” he wondered, walking towards the edge of the mount. The smoke looked like it came from the camp, but it seemed too much for it to just be from the normal camp fires.

Behind him, Shaka sighed and threw the water over the fire.

“They’re early,” he said, and grabbed Kiki up in his arms. “They’re messing with the order of events. Take us to the village, or we’ll be too late.”

“W-what are you talking about?!” asked Mu.

Shaka grabbed his hand.

“The war started early.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters today because they were a bit short and I didn't want to make too small of an update, so I worked hard at the editing to get both posted. Hope you guys like them. There are interesting events coming up ahead :P  
> I like Mu and Shaka so much. I wish I had written more fics about them, but they're such a difficult ship to write for me and I don't even know why U.U  
> Thanks for reading and I hope you guys have a great weekend!
> 
> Blog: alexdamien.wordpress.com  
> Wattpad @alxdamien


	5. Chapter 5

Kanon woke up to find himself lying on a bed in what looked to be a master bedroom. He sat up on its edge and looked around. He didn’t recognize anything around him, and there was nothing in the bedroom that could even give a hint about the owner’s identity.

He stood up and walked up to the windows. Pulling aside the curtains, he found them barred with ornate iron decorations. He grabbed them and tested them, but all he found was that he no longer had any strength. His stomach growled, and exhaustion too over him. He bent over, panting for breath. He needed to find something to feed on, or things would get very ugly, very fast.

He moved on to the door and found it locked from the outside.

“Hey! Who’s there?!” he yelled, banging on the door, but no one answered.

With a huff, he moved on to the other door that he found on the room, which led him to a great tiled bath. There were tall windows lined over the opposite wall, but their all had the same ornate iron patterns over them, so that he wouldn’t be able to escape.

Too tired to even think about how to escape anymore, he decided to just take a bath. He turned on the faucets and let warm water fill out the large tub that span almost the full entirety of the room. Looking at it, Kanon smiled as he remembered the large communal baths of the knight garrison back in the south when he and Saga were nothing but children. Aioros had been there too. And Shura. And…

His smile vanished as the memories of murder and death and blood came back to him. Why had it all started? That was a question for Saga, and the answer hid within the labyrinth of his mind. A place where even Kanon could not follow him.

He looked around and noticed a small table with soaps and different oils with scents from roses to musk. He took the tray and set it on the edge of the bath, thinking of how much better he would feel once he wasn’t stinking of blood and smoke and dried tears.

Once he turned the water off, he took off his clothes and sunk into the water.

It has been so long since he had taken even a moment to rest, his body felt pained and exhausted, as if he had been beaten all over.

Which wasn’t too far from the truth, actually.

But he had known things would only turn out badly as soon as Shura had appeared. And when Aioros came out of hiding to meet him…He attacked immediately when he saw them meet once again.

He had seen Aioros walking into Shura’s tent and felt in his chest, down to the core of his unbeating heart, that he was seeing the premise to his own end.

Even now, sitting in the warmth of the bath, he could feel as if he was rushing into his predetermined destruction. The more he ran away from that feeling of dread, the more he felt like he was embracing the end.

“Aren’t you supposed to not be able to touch water?” asked a deep voice behind him, jolting him out of his thoughts. He hadn’t heard anything, lost in his own mind as he had been.

He looked up to find a tall blonde man dressed in a formal black tunic, black boots and black gloves. He recognized the voice as the man who had hit him from behind previously, even if he hadn’t seen him back then

“I can’t go through running water,” he said, pushing his hair back. The man was handsome enough, although there was something strangely familiar about him that Kanon couldn’t quite define. He felt like he had seen him before somehow. He gave his sharpest grin. “I can take a bath just fine, thank you. And you could too. Come here.” 

The man scoffed.

“Where is Saga?” he demanded, crossing his arms over his chest.

“He locked me inside a coffin and left me there to rot away. Do you really think I know what he’s planning?” said Kanon, slapping at the surface of the water. Resentment rose up in his chest whenever he thought back to that. Most of his memories of him now were so colored by resentment, he could barely stand to think of Saga as anything more than the child he had been before the change. “Hell, half the time he doesn’t know what he’s planning himself. He’ll feed you one day, then beat you the next. He’ll smile in the morning, then stab you at night. There’s something…insane about him. Some darkness in him.”

The man nodded, as if Kanon was only confirming something he already knew, which told Kanon that this man was way, way more than he appeared. And he appeared mighty powerful already.

“What was the last thing you heard of him?” asked the man, taking a few steps towards the door.

“Uh? So you’re just going to believe me? What if I was lying?”

“I have no time for your jokes Kanon. What was the last you saw of him?”

Kanon lifted an eyebrow at that.

“Uh, you seem to know more than you should. How did you find out about me? I mostly just pretend to be Saga, so it’s quite the thing that you even know my name,” he said, tapping his lips with the tip of his finger. The more he looked at his face, the more he got that strange sense of familiarity from him. He walked out of the bath, combing his hands through his long hair. “Who are you? I feel like we’ve met before, but I think I would remember someone as handsome as you.”

The man scoffed.

“Don’t make me get serious with you,” he said. “Just tell me what you know of Saga.”

Kanon licked his lips as he approached him.

“Now, you’re all business, uh? But I’ll admit you’ve been pretty nice, leaving me here instead of in a dungeon, so even if you don’t want to say anything, I know we’ve met before. So however it was, I’m still thankful,” he said, and draped his arms around his neck. The man did not push him away, which made him smirk. “Come now, don’t think I haven’t noticed how you look at me. I’m a very grateful man. Let me show you my gratitude.”

The man stayed still for a moment, and Kanon almost thought he would still reject him. But then he wrapped one of his arms around his waist and pulled him closer.

Kanon laughed before moving forward and kissing him.

The man returned his intensity, biting Kanon’s smiling lips, deepening the kiss. In a moment, he pushed Kanon down on the tiled floor underneath him. The vampire spread his legs, letting him in closer and pulling at his shirt.

But the man didn’t care, only opened his pants to let out his hardening cock.

“I really, really would remember this,” panted Kanon, looking down at his length. His own cock hardening even more at the sight. “Won’t you tell me who you are?”

The man growled low in his throat and pushed Kanon’s legs further apart. Then he reached out for the tray near the edge of the bath and grabbed one of the bottles of oil, to cover his cock.

“It would be better if you didn’t remember,” said the man, and pushed into him.

Kanon gasped, arching over the tiled floor. He took a second to recover his breath and then wrapped his arms around the man, pulling him closer. He felt hot with the heat of life. It has been years since Kanon had done it with a human and the feeling made him moan.

“Whenever it was, we didn’t do this,” he panted, throwing his head back. “I wouldn’t have let you go after this. I would keep you chained to my bed. Damn you’re good.”

The man scoffed out a laugh.

“Idiot,” he muttered, thrusting into him harder, grabbing at Kanon’s hips with surprising strength. “You really don’t remember anything.”

Kanon moaned and kissed him. He felt so good, his cock filling him deep and hitting that spot that made him see stars with every thrust.

“Ah! I can’t-!” started Kanon, but his orgasm overtook him, and he cried out while still holding on to the other man, his sharp nails leaving red welts over his back despite his tunic.

The man grunted and thrusted again as Kanon tightened around him, sending him over the edge.

They laid over the tiled floor panting for a few moments to recover their breaths, before the man pulled out of Kanon sitting back up to take off his black tunic.

“Fuck, that was great,” mumbled Kanon, shaking his head, a grin on his lips. “I can’t believe I don’t remember you. Did you just fuck me out of my mind last time we met?”

The man sighed and shook his head, then threw away his tunic and then took off his black gloves.

Kanon laughed and looked up at him from the floor, a joke at his lips, when he noticed the man throwing away his gloves.

He was missing the small finger of his left hand, which had been hidden by a prothesis in his gloves.

Kanon blinked, and a flood of memories washed over him.

“Rha…Rhadamanthys?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dun dun dunnnnn It's the reencounter! Hahaha! Oh, those two are hilarious together.
> 
> *sigh* But I'm sad cos I can't write very fast. A few days ago I burned my hand with some hot grease while cooking and it's been a hassle. Today I was maddeningly slow at work and the place where I got burnt kept itching painfully. Today it's much better. I should be alright in a few days. Sorry for not answering messages. They are lovely and make me very happy, I'll reply as soon as I can. I've just been taking it slowly while my hand gets better.


	6. Chapter 6

Years and years ago, after having Aioros murdered, it took only a few moon cycles for Saga to take over control of the kingdom. A few assassinations here and there, blame this member of the royal family and pit them against that one. As Kanon observed from the shadows, it really seemed as if Saga had only to whisper a right word and pieces would come crashing down.

By the time Shura realized what had happened, it had been too late. With everyone implicated, no one would dare stand up when Shura finally told the truth.

The night Shura escaped, Kanon decided to drop by Saga’s room, climbing up the tower where his room was and slipping in through the window. He sat down on the windowsill, looking down at the torches lighting up through the streets below as what little was left of Shura’s forces organized for escape.

Kanon licked his new fangs, wondering if Shura might be able to escape if he held up Saga for just long enough. Seeing the fires lighting up gave him a feeling that he was setting on fire his own funerary pire somehow. As if things he couldn’t understand were setting in motion.

Or maybe, as if he was just caught up in a play that had been started by Saga. A play where he had been forced to play a part that hinged in his own destruction.

The door opened and Saga stalked into the room, looking for his sword and pieces of his armor strewn around the room.

“Hey there,” said Kanon, jumping off the windowsill. “Busy, uh?”

Saga jolted, jumping back a couple steps and drawing his sword at Kanon.

“It’s me, idiot!” said Kanon, holding up his hands.

Saga took a deep breath and shook his head.

“Don’t sneak into my room like that. How did you get in here? I don’t have time for you. I need to catch Shura.”

“Uh? Just let him go. He’s done for,” said Kanon.

“No. I need to- He has… he has to stay by my side,” said Saga, wrapping his arm guards and reaching for his short sword.

“He knows you were lying about Aioros. He’s _not_ going to stay by your side after that,” said Kanon, sitting down at the edge of Saga’s bed.

“He wasn’t supposed to find out so early, but I can fix this. I just need to bring him back,” said Saga.

“Uhuh, well good luck with that. I just wanted to tell you something kind of important,” said Kanon, kicking up his legs, the way he had done when they were kids.

“What is it Kanon? You have no idea how important it is that I catch Shura.”

“Nah, it’s fine, you go get him. Just wanted to let you know I kind of died a while ago,” said Kanon, rolling his eyes. Of course, Saga never had any time for anything that didn’t involve Saga. Not even his twin’s life or death.

“What are you even talking about?” asked Saga, turning towards him with a frown. “Don’t joke around.”

“It’s fine, I fixed it. I’m immortal now,” said Kanon, and opened his mouth to show him his sharp fangs. “I also got sharp claws and all now.”

Saga looked at him for a moment. Then he blinked and stepped closer to him.

“You…you’re a vampire…,” he whispered.

“Yup. I kind of got stabbed a while ago in a duel while pretending to be you. But there was a vampire around that made me a proposal I really couldn’t refuse,” he said and stood up. “But I feel better than ever now. So, except from the whole ‘having to drink blood now’ thing, I’m pretty fine.”

Saga rubbed at his eyes for a moment and then stared back at him again.

“No… No. No way. This… You can’t be dead. You can’t… You weren’t supposed to die before…,” he stammered, his eyes filling with tears.

Regret tugged at Kanon’s heart and he moved forward to hug him.

“I know, it seems very bad, but I’m fine now,” he said. “You don’t have to cry.”

“I just… I can’t believe… This…This is my fault.”

“Saga, you had nothing to do with me dying and getting turned into a vampire,” laughed Kanon, hugging him tighter. “I did all that myself. You don’t have to blame yourself.”

Saga pulled away and grabbed him by the arm so hard, Kanon flinched.

“It was my fault,” he said, shaking his head. “I was supposed to lock you up before I killed Aioros, but I didn’t. I didn’t want to, and now you’re dead.”

“Saga what the hell are you-,“ said Kanon, trying to pull away from his hold.

Saga lifted his sword and stabbed his brother through the stomach.

“But I’ll lock you up now. Down as close to the water as I can, and bring you to the sea later,” he said.

Kanon’s voice caught up in his throat as he started puking blood so that he couldn’t even scream when Saga laid him down on the floor.

And not even when he had actually died did he feel as thoroughly murdered as when Saga draped a sheet over him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaahhhhh, I'm so late, but I still managed to post a new chapter today! I promise to be earlier next time! *hugs*


	7. Chapter 7

After wrapping Kanon in a sheet so no one else would see him, Saga brought him down to one of the deepest dungeon’s on the castle. A dark, damp and cold sliver of a cave sealed off by iron bars.

There the vampire stayed for so long that Kanon lost track of time, only remembering there was an outside world whenever Saga brought him glasses of blood for him to drink every now and then.

There weren’t even any guards or anyone that would hear him yell, until he gave up and just waited, curled up at the back of the cave, nestling his resentment and his anger deep in his dead heart. The only thing he was glad about was that he had managed to make Saga lose enough time for Shura to escape. That little bit made him smile, even if it also brought about nightmares of his own death.

Days passed and nights passed, and time because to Kanon only a series of nightmares broken up by short periods of being awake in the darkness.

Until one day, Saga brought down someone.

He opened the bars and threw someone into the jail.

“You’ll stay here until you decide to talk,” said Saga, closing down the jail again. “Kanon, don’t eat him. But you can bite him a little.”

Then he turned around and left.

Kanon hissed at him as he retreated, then looked to the side, to the person who had been thrown into the cave with him. It looked too short to be an adult.

“Who the fuck are you?” he demanded.

The person jolted, but didn’t say anything. In the shadows, Kanon could see better than a human, so he noticed it seemed to be a boy, roughly about fifteen.

The boy moved to curl up on the other end of the cave, as far away from Kanon as he could, and didn’t say a single word.

But Kanon could smell blood. It made his stomach growl. It smelled like the most delicious thing he had ever smelled.

Saga fed him with glasses of animal blood, but human blood smelled and tasted like life itself.

“What did he do to you?” he asked.

The boy didn’t answer.

“It’ll do you no good to bleed to death,” said Kanon, standing up and walking towards him. The boy held up his fists as Kanon approached, ready to fight.

“You’re kinda cute, uh,” said Kanon, grabbing the wrist where he could smell the most blood. A look down showed him that the kid had had the little finger of his left hand cut off. He frowned at the sight.

“He did this,” he said, holding the boy’s wrist firm in his hand. The boy didn’t reply. “Whatever he wants from you, don’t give it to him. He’ll kill you as soon as you do.”

He let go of him and instead grabbed his good arm.

“Come here,” he told him, pulling him towards a small hole at the very back of the cave. “Inside there you’ll feel a small drip of water. Clean your wound with it and I’ll dress it.”

The boy didn’t move or say anything, just stayed frozen where he was, holding his wounded and bleeding hand against his chest. Kanon bit his lower lip, wanting nothing more than to make this kid his dinner and fuck whatever Saga wanted from him. If he had dumped him in with Kanon, he had to be ok with the possibilities that Kanon would end up eating him.

“Come on, your wound will get infected,” he said, pushing him towards the hole in the rock. “I can’t do it for you. I can’t touch running water.”

The boy hesitated for a moment more, and then reached into the hole, feeling for it in the darkness and then pulling out a handful of water.

He cleaned his wound, flinching only a couple times. Then Kanon dressed it, taking care to put some of his saliva over the wound. The vampire that had turned him had explained that licking over the wounds they left in humans would heal them, so he hoped that it would help in healing the wound over the boy’s hand.

“There. Go sit away wherever now,” said Kanon, finishing dressing up the wound. “And whatever Saga wants from you, make sure you forget all about it. The moment you blurt it out, it’s over for you.”

The boy went off to sit down as far as he could away from Kanon, who returned to his own place.

He drummed the tips of his sharp claws against the stone floor of the cave, thinking about Saga. He had seen his brother’s descent into madness from the very first moment, but torturing kids… he could barely believe that he had sunk that low already.

He looked down at the hole where the small drip of water flowed and thought of how thick the wall must be.

It forcefully would have to be thinner around the hole, but how much water would be released if he broke it? He pondered on this for a while, and finally moved to kneel next to the hole and started digging into the rock with his claws.

After a while of hearing him chipping at the stone, the boy finally spoke.

“What are you doing?” he asked, still with a slight childish edge to his voice.

Kanon grinned.

“I’m breaking you out of here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rhada: You broke me out of jail that time, remember?  
> Kanon: Oh, you were that cute little kid! You...became a very big man...  
> Rhada: It's been over ten years since then  
> Kanon: And I feel like they kinda fucked me up all at the same time. Literally AND metaphorically.  
> Rhada: *facepalms*
> 
> Lol! I swear, I have way too much fun with these two. I think they're very cute. I see them as a kind of really loving couple who just like to argue all the time just for fun :P


	8. Chapter 8

Kanon kept digging into the stone day after day, only stopping when Saga went down into the dungeon to bring him blood, or to take the kid out for more beatings.

And every time his brother returned him weaker and with more wounds, and Kanon forced himself to dig into the wall even more desperately.

Until one day, he cut out into the other side and cried in pain as his hand touched a waterfall on the other side. He stumbled back, holding his wounded hand. It had felt as if he had stuck his hand into a raging fire.

The boy had jumped to his feet.

“Are you ok?” he asked.

Kanon panted, flexing his hand. It hurt to even move it.

“I’m fine,” he lied. “But I finally broke through to the other side,” he said and smirked. Then fluffed the boy’s hair with his good hand. “I’ll have you out here in no time, kid.”

The boy pulled away, and Kanon knelt back down next to the hole to keep digging around the place where he had broken through. Luckily the waterfall seemed to be a little farther away from the rock on the other side, so he didn’t have to worry about it too much, but with one of his hands wounded, his digging now progressed much slower.

“Why did he put you here?” suddenly asked the boy, surprising Kanon. This had to be the third time he had heard him speak in all the time they had been trapped together.

“Uh, why do you think?” he asked, sarcasm dripping from his voice. Then he realized that in the darkness of the dungeon, the boy’s human eyes could probably not see much of him, even if he had already gotten used to the darkness. He would most likely not have realized that he was an identical copy of Saga. He laughed at the thought. “Take a guess.”

“Because…you’re a monster?”

“You actually got that right. Sort of. But don’t call me monster. I’m a vampire, that’s all. Anyway, he basically threw me in here because he went crazy a while ago,” said Kanon. He stopped digging to recover his breath.

Yes. Saga had gone crazy.

Somehow.

For some reason.

It was the only explanation he would accept for why he had suddenly started acting like he wanted to destroy everything around him.

He had turned against his best friend, against his knight order, and against his very twin brother. Madness had to be the only explanation, because thinking that Saga had done all of that out of his own will would destroy Kanon.

So he decided that for some reason, Saga had gone crazy. And that was it in his mind.

“He doesn’t… seem crazy,” said the boy. “He seems way, way too smart.”

“A lot of crazy people are smart. That’s what makes them dangerous. And you? Why did he toss you in here?”

The boy did not answer.

“Oh, that’s right,” said Kanon, moving to resume his digging again. “I told you not to tell. That’s good. Don’t tell me. I’ll get you out of here and then you’ll be fine.”

He kept chipping at the stone for a while, until the boy started speaking again.

“Why are you trying to help me?” he asked in a whisper, but Kanon’s vampire ears picked up on his words clearly.

He thought about it for a moment.

Why was he doing all of this, anyway? Why was he suffering and enduring even more pain than his destiny had heaped on him. Why was the point of working and hurting himself day after day and night after night, all for this child whose name he didn’t even know?

“Because it’s the right thing,” he said, and kept on digging.

It was the truth, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a lot I want to say about this chapter. Mainly that the way I see Saga and Kanon is, in essence, as two sides of the same coin. But I fear that I wouldn't be able to explain my full reasoning without giving away too much of the story...


	9. Chapter 9

It took a while for his bad hand to recover, but he kept chipping away at the stone. For a while, Saga seemed to stop caring about the existence of the child and Kanon, and instead sent off guards to feed them. They never spoke to them, and Kanon was thankful for that, even if every now and then he was very tempted to grab at the wrist that slid the food through the bars and suck him dry of the very last drop of his blood just to get Saga to get down there and laugh at how angry he would be.

But he didn’t, and instead he kept to himself, digging at the stone with the little strength that he still had. By then he had noticed that Saga never fed him enough to strengthen him too much, but only enough to keep him alive. The bastard really was too smart for his own good. And for everybody else’s good, too.

Then Saga came back and took the child away again like he did before. Kanon gritted his teeth when he saw them leaving, wondering if he could surprise Saga and overpower him when they came back.

If he knocked him down, he could probably grab the kid and run away. But how long would his already weakened body hold on? Could he escape from any guards they encountered? But there were probably more soldiers stationed outside even if they managed to escape the inside of the castle. He would not make it very far at all.

He looked up at the thinned out stone wall separating him from the inside. The sound of water could be heard a little more now.

He kept on digging.

Saga returned carrying the child under his arm. Then he dropped him into the stone floor of the jail, where he didn’t move.

“What did you do to him?!” asked Kanon, rushing to the child’s side.

“There are two others like him. I need to know where they are,” said Saga, locking the bars again. “I need to know it whatever it takes.”

“Saga this is insane!” roared Kanon, jumping to his feet and grabbing on to the bars. “Who even have you become?! Why are you doing all this?!”

Saga stayed quiet for a moment, looking back at him, and Kanon’s vampire eyes could see the light of his eyes through the shadows. He could still recognize the brother he had been before, but realizing that only pained him more.

“I cannot tell unless you remember on your own,” he said, then turned around and left.

Kanon growled, then knelt down next to the boy and pulled him up. He looked like he had been badly beaten, and his eyes fluttered slightly open when Kanon moved him. The vampire took off his coat and draped it over him, then pulled him up into a more comfortable position.

“You’re freezing,” he said, hugging him against his chest, despite knowing he had no warmth to give him. Instead, he rubbed at his sides, hoping at least the friction would help.

“I didn’t tell him,” whispered the boy. “I won’t ever tell him.”

“Don’t even think about that now,” he said, and set him down gently against a wall. “Just hold on a little more. I’m almost done.”

He wiped a drop of blood from the kids cheek with his thumb and licked it off. He could feel the strength of life flowing through him again, even if only faintly, giving him just enough energy to crack the hole on the wall a little wider now.

“See? You’ll be free very soon, so don’t go dying now, alright kid?” he told him.

The kid looked up in awe at him and nodded, a renewed determination in his eyes.

“Don’t call me kid,” he said burrowing under Kanon’s coat. “My name is Rhadamanthys Wyvern.”

Kanon laughed. “Such a formal name. Are you some little lord? Well, it’ll be my pleasure to get you out of here. I hope you can swim, Lord Rhadamanthys.”

Steps echoed down from the stairs outside, and Kanon whirled around, knowing the sound of Saga’s footsteps from heart.

“Kanon, I don’t want you to hate me, but I have to-,” he said, walking towards the jail with a torch in hand. The light illuminated both the figures of Kanon and the child.

And revealed the hole on the wall.

Saga froze at the end of the stairs, his eyes going from his brother to the hole, to the child. His expression turned furious.

“Kanon what are you doing?!” he roared, running towards the bars of the jail.

The child looked up at Kanon recognizing him as an exact copy of Saga, and screamed. Kanon turned back to the stone wall and using all of his remaining strength, kicked at the edges of the hole, expanding it.

Saga opened the door, but Kanon jumped forward and grabbed the child.

“Kanon no! Don’t! You’ll condemn us!” yelled Saga.

The vampire ignored him.

“This is all I can do for you kid. I can’t follow you now, so go and live,” he told the child, and threw him out of the whole towards the waterfall and to the roaring river below.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had some problems irl at the end of this week Thursday/Friday, so I couldn't update according to schedule. Sorry for that. I worked a bit harder today to put up an extra chapter to make up for it ;) hope you guys are still enjoying it and sorry for the late replies to comments! I'll get too is as soon as possible!
> 
> Kanon: *throws Rhada into a river*  
> Rhada: WHAT ARE YOU DOING???!!!  
> Kanon: It's called saving your life, you dummy ;3


	10. Chapter 10

The fact that the little scrawny boy had become tall, stern and hot as hell man was such a shock to Kanon that his dead vampire heart almost beat again. He scrambled away from him, his hands slipping over the tiled floor of the bath.

“Hmph. So you remember my name,” said Rhadamanthys, standing up and closing his pants.

Kanon grabbed for his own clothes, suddenly wanting to cover himself even though he didn’t understand why.

“Wha-? Of course I remember you! It’s not like Saga kidnapped tons of kids, you know!” he said.

Rhadamanthys shook his head and grabbed Kanon’s arm even as the vampire tried to cover himself.

“Why are you embarrassed now? We just had sex,” he said, pulling him up. “Come, I have some clean clothes for you. Those are all bloody.”

Kanon followed him back into the bedroom, where he found a pile of clothes folded at the feet of the bed.

“I’m not embarrassed,” muttered Kanon, quickly dressing himself up. Rhadamanthys handed him a glass of blood, and the vampire was surprised to taste that it was indeed human blood. He took a moment to drink it while regarding the gorgeous man in front of him. “It’s just weird to think that you’re that cute kid. You’ve become so big now. But since you remember how I helped you, why don’t you return the favor and let me go? I don’t know anything about Saga. I hadn’t see him for years and when I finally went back to see him he dumped me into a coffin. You of all people have got to believe me.”

Rhadamanthys grabbed him by the chin and lifted up his face.

“You haven’t changed. You still look just like him,” he said.

“Tch. Can’t help that. We’re twins,” said Kanon, trying to look away, but Rhadamanthys held his face up, still looking at him with that intense stare that sent a shiver down Kanon’s back.

“I figured as much when I finally saw your face,” he said. “I thought I was going crazy, locked up with the same person who was torturing me.”

“I’m not him!” said Kanon, hitting the other man lightly on the chest, suddenly very aware of how hot human bodies were. How hot and hard and handsome his human body was. “We’re completely different people. We just look the same. Saga wouldn’t have dug into a mountain to save you.”

Rhadamanthys wrapped his arm around Kanon’s waist and pulled him closer, setting a fire blazing inside Kanon.

“You threw me down a waterfall,” he said.

“I saved your scrawny ass.”

They kissed, with Rhadamanthys pulling full against him and Kanon moaning at the feel of the heat coming from him. Rhadamanthys deepened the kiss, tasting the inside of Kanon’s mouth and every part of him felt so hot and so full of life that Kanon felt like he would catch on fire.

He pulled away for a gasp of breath that he didn’t even need, but Rhadamanthys’ touch made him feel more human and more alive than he had felt in years. He tried to step back but the back of his legs hit the bed and he fell on it.

“How did you survive?” asked Kanon, panting for breath, while Rhadamanthys settled between his legs.

“So you didn’t know if I would survive when you threw me down the waterfall?” he asked, smirking and sliding his hands under Kanon’s tunic, making him shiver under his touch.

“I knew that if I didn’t throw you out, you would definitely die,” said Kanon, threading his fingers through Rhadamanthys’ blonde hair and pulling him closer for another kiss, and another, and another. “But I couldn’t cross the waterfall. Fuck, how did you become so damn hot?”

Rhadamanthys laughed, and Kanon took off his clothes. Fuck the awkwardness of the reunion, the man in front of him was way too hot, and if he wanted to fuck him again, Kanon wasn’t about to play hard to get.

“Well, the fall didn’t kill me, for one,” said Rhadamanthys, tracing the skin of Kanon’s thighs. “And then I just had to swim for a while. Keep afloat in the current, until I managed to get to the shore. I could still see the castle in the distance, but something in the sky caught my attention. A star. A star of misfortune.”

He leaned down to kiss him again and Kanon melted against him, a smile on his lips.

“Misfortune?” he asked with a sigh when they parted. “You survived. That sounds like it was your lucky star.”

Rhadamanthys traced Kanon’s lips with his thumb, but there was a strange glint to his eyes as he looked down at him. Something dark. Something similar to the way Saga’s eyes sparked in the midst of his madness.

“No. It was a star of misfortune. A star of Ferocity. And it consumed me.”


	11. Chapter 11

Aphrodite woke up in sweat, his heart racing as the images of his nightmare faded when he blinked open his eyes. He grunted and reached out.

“Hngh… I had the most awful nightmare,” he mumbled, his fingers looking for Deathmask’s warmth and finding nothing.

He sat up in the great bed. Off to the side, the wind shook the curtains of the open balcony door.

“Deathmask?” he asked, getting up and grabbing a red silk robe from a nearby chair.

He went to the balcony and found it empty. There was a strange feeling to the night air all around him. A feeling that reminded him of his nightmare.

What had he even been dreaming of anyway?

He couldn’t remember anymore. All that was left was the feeling of dread curling around his heart. A feeling of rushing towards some terrible end that awaited him.

He spread his hands over the railing of the balcony and looked down to his flower gardens, the leaves of every tree and bush and bloom, tilting in the night breeze.

“Where is that idiot?” he asked his flowers.

They did not reply, and the weight of their silence made the dread in his chest even more asphyxiating.

“I’m here,” whispered Deathmask behind him, wrapping his arms around him and letting his head fall against Aphrodite’s shoulder, breathing in the scent of his skin.

Aphrodite conked him over the head.

“Where were you?” he demanded.

Deathmask snickered against the skin of his neck.

“Sorry. I needed to… ah, to make sure of some things…,” said the necromancer.

Aphrodite pulled on his hair.

“Don’t try to act all mysterious,” he said, then sighed and caressed his lover’s hair. “Is something bad going to happen?”

“Aside from Shura getting kidnapped by a vampire and then having to marry him?”

“You know what I mean,” said Aphrodite, rolling his eyes. He looked back down at the flowers of his garden. “They’re not speaking to me tonight. As if something has scared them into silence.”

Deathmask was silent for a moment as the night breeze blew colder over them. Then he pulled Aphrodite closer against himself, tightening his embrace.

“Spirits gather…,” he said, and tiny blue flames of hell lit all around them.

Looking out through their light, Aphrodite saw dozens of dark spirits floating around the castle. Rows after rows of souls looking out towards the sky where a waning moon slowly vanished.

They, like his flowers, awaited silently for something that terrified them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> UwU I missed writing Deathmask and Aphrodite so much. I love those two and I can't believe I haven't written a fic specifically for them. Maybe one day, heheheh.


	12. Chapter 12

Aioros chased Shura through the kitchen.

“Well, I think it will be fun,” he said, holding the wedding invitation in his hands.

“I refuse to support Milo’s madness of marrying Camus,” said the knight, putting a roast in the oven. It had turned out that none of the vampires who served Aioros remembered how to cook human food, so mostly Shura had to tend to himself.

Aioros had offered to help, but by the third roast that had ended up burnt to a crisp, Shura had started discouraging his attempts to surprise him with dinner.

“They are very excited and very in love,” said Aioros, grinning and jumping up to sit on one of the counters, still holding up the brightly white paper of the invitation.

“Camus hates you,” said Shura, with a tone that begged Aioros to be reasonable and to not drag him to the wedding. “Milo probably invited us without telling Camus.”

“Well, I really was kind of a jerk to him when we arrived,” accepted Aioros with a sheepish smile. “And I did cause a bit of chaos for a while in the White Lands when I built the Night Towers.”

“Then it’s settled, we can’t go because you’re a jerk,” said Shura, and walked out the kitchen.

Aioros faded into shadows only to reform a few steps ahead of Shura.

“No, wait!” he asked, chasing after him when the knight passed him by. “I’ll apologize to Camus! I’ll say I’m very sorry and I won’t do it again and we’ll bring a really nice gift! Then he will stop hating me.”

“You’re not sorry about anything, and you would do it all again in a heartbeat,” said Shura with a huff, walking into one of the sitting rooms and collapsing into one of the couches.

“He doesn’t have to know _that_ ,” said Aioros, draping his arms around him and nuzzling Shura’s hair. The knight knew his reticence wouldn’t hold for much longer. He could feel his resolve crumbling like it always did with whatever Aioros asked of him.

“I can’t believe they’re really going along with this,” said Shura, rubbing the bridge of his nose. He felt like he was going to get a headache at any moment.

Aioros walked around the couch to sit down on Shura’s lap.

“It’s no different from our wedding,” he said, smiling up at him.

Aioria yelled out from the hallway outside. “Two dumbass weddings in a row!”

Aioros laughed and Shura threw his head back.

“It’s very different from us getting married,” he said, caressing the side of Aioros’ face. “We’ve known each other since we were children. Those two have known each other for what? Six months?”

“Three!”

Shura let his head fall back again and groaned in frustration.

“They can’t decide that they’ll get married so fast!” he yelled. “I’m going to that wedding just to oppose it!”

Aioros pouted. “Then I’m not taking you!” he said and huffed in a childish way that made Shura grab his face and kiss him senseless.

The vampire moaned and wrapped his arms around Shura’s neck, pulling him closer and bit at the knight’s lips.

“Does this mean we’re going to the wedding?” he asked with a smile.

Shura pushed him away from his lap, and Aioros puffed into black smoke, turning into a small black bat flying next to Shura’s head.

“I guess,” he said, standing up and walking out through the doors that led to the front garden. “But I don’t know what we’re going to get them as a wedding gift. What do you give someone who can make anything out of ice? I really don’t understand why you want to go so bad.”

Aioros turned back to his vampire form sitting on the branch of a nearby tree.

“I just want you to watch them get married because they are soul mates and are destined to be together because they are in love,” he said. “You can forget all about Milo then.”

Shura shook his head.

“Are you still so jealous of me and Milo? I keep telling you, we’re just friends. And friends don’t let friends marry crazy men that they just met three months ago.”

Something dark floating in the air caught Aioros’ attention and he looked up. He extended his hand and caught a black feather.

It sent a shiver of cold through his arm.

“Shura get back into the castle!” he yelled, and Shura looked up to see him floating in midair, surrounded by tendrils of dark energy.

Black feathers kept falling all around as great black birds flew in a circle overhead.

“Aioros! They’re interfering with the Night Towers!” yelled Aioria, running out into the garden, carrying his sword.

“What are they?” asked Shura, reaching for his sword but he suddenly remembered that he now went unarmed. The image of the sword that the Goddess had given him flashed through his mind.

“I don’t know, but they’re all over the Night Towers!” yelled Aioria, taking flight towards where Aioros clawed at the birds flying overhead.

Shura gritted his teeth. He needed a weapon.

He ran back into the castle, rushing up the main staircase taking the steps two by two as he made his way into the master bedroom he shared with Aioros. The sword stood in its scabbard against the bedside table. He ran towards it, reaching out to grab the handle.

The world froze.

Shura blinked, and realized that no, the only one that had stopped was him. Frozen in place and incapable of moving even a finger.

“So that’s the sword,” said an amused voice, and a tall figure moved from among the shadows. A man with long white hair that covered his eyes and a cold grin walked towards him. He extended his hand and Shura felt himself moving against his will. He pulled back his hand and backed away from the sword.

The man moved forward and grabbed the sword instead.

“Oh, it feels so warm,” he said, taking it out of its scabbard. The glow that it had when Shura held it dimmed, the blade turning black. The man snickered. “So dramatic! So much like your goddess herself!”

Shura growled low in his throat, fighting against the control he felt freezing him in place, but the more he fought, the more he felt like there were iron chains holding him down.

“Such a stern look. You’re a serious guy, uh?” said the man, walking up to Shura and poking his cheek.

Shura drew on all of his strength, pushing against the control at once and released his arm to punch the man in the face.

He stumbled back, let go of the sword and Shura jumped on him, slamming his head against the floor before feeling himself freezing again and forced to move away from him.

“You bastard,” muttered the man, pushing himself up from the floor and reaching towards the sword again. “So this is the power of the souls she had chosen for herself. Well, let’s see how you fall apart.”

He lifted the blackened sword up high, a manic grin on his lips.

“Let’s cut off that annoying arm first!” he yelled, and brought the blade down.

Shura felt nothing.

The blade cut off his right arm so cleanly that for a second there, he felt no pain as he saw his arm fall off on the floor. He looked down at the pool of blood forming around it as the pain bloomed all over his shoulder, his chest, and all throughout his body.

He gritted his teeth and took a deep breath before speaking.

“Who sent you?” he asked.

The man glared down at him, all amusement turning into rage.

“Do you feel no pain?!” he bellowed, rising the sword again to cut off Shura’s remaining arm.

A shadow broke in through the window and crashed against the man with an inhuman screech.

Shura crumbled to his knees as he was released from the man’s control. He gasped at the pain, dizzy and disoriented for a second. Then he looked up and saw Aioros being thrown across the room by the man.

“You should be dead!” yelled the man, blood dripping from claw marks across his face.

Aioros jumped to his feet, wiping a trail of blood from the corner of his mouth, a primal growl rising from him, bloodlust shining in his eyes. He flew forward, and froze in midair.

“I’ll tear you apart then!” said the man, lifting his hands towards the vampire, forcing his arms apart to the sides.

Shura leapt forward, grabbed the blade with his remaining arm and slashed at the man, cutting across his chest. The man stumbled back, crying in pain while Aioros fell to the floor, released from his control.

“I’ll destroy you!” laughed the man, backing away from Shura. “I’ll destroy you all!”

He vanished among a flurry of black feathers before Shura’s blade could reach him.

The knight roared in frustration at missing him, panting.

“Shura…,” whispered Airos, embracing him.

The knight turned around to face him, finding not the bloodthirsty monster that had crashed through the window, but the man he had loved for nearly all his life, looking at him with tear filled eyes.

“Don’t cry,” he begged, wanting to touch him, but feeling the darkness of unconsciousness taking over him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand enough introductions, we have arrived at the plot. I hope you're ready because this ride is going to start going very, very fast. It's pain all the way down from here people! Brace yourselves!


	13. Chapter 13

Mu brought Shaka and Kiki as close to the village as his powers allowed him. He saw columns of smoke rising all around from burning tents and buildings all around. The despair and terror from his earlier dream floated back to the front of his mind.

“Shion! Where’s Shion?!” he cried, looking among the people running around as balls of darkness fell from the sky.

Shaka pulled at his arm.

“Mu we have to leave! It’s too late into the battle now!” he yelled over the screams and the noise, but Mu pulled away from him, running into the village.

He found Shion at the front of what looked like the first line of defense. Up ahead a cloud of dust prevented him from seeing the main attacking force.

“Shion! What happened?!” he asked, running towards him.

Shion looked back at him, and then behind him at Shaka who had chased after him, still carrying Kiki in his arms.

“So it was this,” said Shion with a pained sigh. “I kept looking at the stars, but I refused to believe what I was seeing.”

“Master Shion, it is too late for us to be here!” said Shaka.

The old man nodded, then looked back towards Mu.

“Go. You and Shaka need to escape. Go and don’t look back!” he ordered.

Mu’s heart twisted in his chest. Looking at Shion’s face, he realized he would not see him again.

“But- But you!” he mumbled.

“Mu it is an order!” roared Shion, when suddenly Dohko tackled him to the side, pushing him away from a falling rock.

Mu whirled around, summoning a shield to protect Kiki and Shaka. He knew in his heart that he had to go, but he couldn’t bring himself to abandon the man who had been his only family for so long.

“You saw this coming,” Mu told Shaka, while blinking away tears.

“Mu you need to go!” yelled Shion, standing back up on his feet with Dohko’s help.

“We’ll be fine kids, just leave,” said Dohko.

“Sir, you will not see tomorrow,” said Shaka.

“You work on that socialization kiddo. Sometimes people have to lie. It makes things like dying easier. Now go!” he said.

“Where should we go?” asked Mu, resigned to his fate.

Shion looked back at him and threw a small card towards him. It had a map of the stars that Mu had seen before, when he had been shown how to place star points over maps.

“To the bridge between our world and the underworld. Bring Shaka there. Your fate will bring you where you need to be.”

Mu grabbed Shaka’s hand. “Will we ever see each other again?” he asked, feeling tears falling down his cheeks.

“Our stars will cross each other again in a few thousand years,” said Shion with a smirk. “When we are reborn, I’ll be a better father for you.”

The images of his nightmare flashed through Mu’s mind. Of himself running away and crying about Shion having died.

In his heart, he knew that they would repeat this parting again, thousands of years into the future. Whenever their stars shone in the sky, they would spell out disaster for them again.

“You were already great,” said Mu, smiling back at him.

Shaka stepped forward. “Master Shion, I have not received the weapon of the goddess!” he said, hesitation showing in his face for the first time.

“You will receive it in time. Just follow Mu. He will guide your way,” he said.

Shaka nodded and Mu grabbed his hand once more. They had to be fast now.

Death was at their heels

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! So so sorry for the huge delay, but December completely wiped me out at work and I took some vacations off from screens altogether. My brain really needed me to get away from any screen. It felt like my brain was getting fried @.@ But I promise I'll make up for it now! I'll start doing daily updates! I promise!  
> Thank you for still staying with this story! I hope you're still liking it! *hugs*


	14. Chapter 14

Kanon woke up the next night to find that Rhadamanthys was gone. He got up with a groan of annoyance. His whole body felt sore, but as he remembered how he had tested Rhadamanthys’ endurance, he could only smirk at the pain he felt.

He took a quick bath and dressed into some of the clothes that Rhadamanthys had brought for him. He had a lot of questions for him, and he was determined to not get himself derailed by his hotness now. No, no more sex until he got some answers.

Well, maybe a little bit…

He walked back into the bedroom to find a tall man with long white hair that covered his eyes. He was reading some kind of book.

“So you’re Kanon, uh?” he asked, looking up at him. His hair parted a bit and Kanon saw the scars of what looked like claw marks across his face. “Please come with me. I have some questions for you.”

Kanon took a step back.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can-“ he said, and shut up when he felt his body moving of it’s its own accord to walk forward, following after the man. “W-What are you doing to me?!”

The man gave a soft laugh as he led him downstairs to what looked like a seating hall with ornate couches and rugs. Big frames hung from the walls, but all the paintings had been ripped off of them.

“Mi name is Minos. Please take a seat,” said the man, sitting on one of the couches while motioning towards the one across from him. He set down his book on the coffee table between them while Kanon moved to sit in front of him, increasingly anxious about what was going on.

“Look, I don’t know what you want. Rhadamanthys brought me here but I have nothing to do with Saga. I haven’t seen him in years, I already told him!” he said.

The man served himself a cup of tea from the teapot on the table and nodded.

“Yes, he told me. He’s very grateful for what you did for him, and I suppose I must be too. If Saga had gotten a hold of me too, things would not have turned out so well,” he said and took a sip of his tea, while taking a careful look at Kanon from over the rim of his cup.

“So you…back then, was Saga looking for you too?” he asked.

The man smiled.

“While grateful for your unwitting help, I’m in a bit of a hurry. Why don’t you tell us where Saga is?”

“I don’t know! I told you!”

“You might be able to fool Rhadamanthys. His loyalty is as much a weakness as it is an asset. But while I cannot remember all of the outcomes of our reincarnations, I do have access to enough information through other means,” he said, and grabbed his book, flipping through the pages. “Through many of your reincarnations, the closeness of your souls means that you and Saga can communicate. Why don’t you try and ask him where he is?”

Kanon gritte his teeth.

“Look, man, I don’t know where you got that from-“

“Kanon, it is from the utmost importance that we find him. I do not wish to have to force you.”

“You can’t force me to tell you something I don’t know!”

Kanon felt his body moving, his arm raising in front of his face, and then twisting so hard he heard the bone break.

He screamed.

Minos served himself another cup of tea.

“Please try,” he said, voice calm and collected despite Kanon’s screams of pain.

“I don’t know! I don’t know!” cried Kanon.

Minos broke off his fingers, one after the other.

“This doesn’t have to be so difficult,” he said.

The door slammed open and Rhadamanthys stalked into the room. He went up to Minos and grabbed him by the front of his tunic.

“What the fuck are you doing?!” he roared.

Minos didn’t even flinch.

“We need to find Saga.”

“He doesn’t know where he is!”

“He knows,” said Minos, pushing him away. “It is only a matter of making him see it’s better to help us.”

“I don’t know what he did to you but I have no idea where he is!” cried Kanon, tears of pain running down his face.

Another man came running into the room. One that Kanon recognized as Aiakos.

“We found her! We found Pandora’s vessel! She’s still looking for our Lord but we need to protect her! The star charts say the goddess will catch her if we don’t!” he yelled and ran out.

Minos stood up.

“We need to go get her now,” he told Rhadamanthys and clapped his hands. Guards came into the room. “Take our guest back to the room.”

Then he hurried out, following Aiakos.

Rhadamanthys went to Kanon’s side and tried to look at his hand, but Kanon pulled away.

“Go. You have to go, right?” he muttered through gritted teeth.

“But you-“

“Tch. This won’t kill me. I’m basically immortal, remember?”

Rhadamanthys patted the side of his face and gave a sharp nod. Then he looked towards the servants and ordered them to cure his wounds and care for him, before leaving after the others.

Kanon collapsed from the pain, and faded in and out of consciousness while the servants reset his bones and put his hand in a cast. Then afterwards they helped him up back into the room and gave him a glass of blood to drink.

But they locked the door when they left, and Kanon could hear guards stationed right outside.

He sighed and stared up at the ceiling above him as he laid on the bed.

“Why is it that I have to hurt when you’re the one being an asshole?” he whispered to himself and closed his eyes, letting his mind go quiet and his spirit to drift off towards that other soul that it was always drawn to. He felt his mind and spirit going far, farther than he had ever felt them go, until in his mind’s eye he could see an image of Saga walking into a mansion. All around him, soldiers turned over tables and chairs, opened wooden chests and pantries. Looking. Looking for something desperately.

Saga opened every door he could find, leaving no corner untouched. There was an even crazier look to his eyes, which now had a strange white light to them that Kanon had never seen before.

“What the hell are you doing Saga?” asked Kanon, letting his voice reach his brother’s soul. “What is happening to you?”

Saga jolted, looking around.

“Kanon?”

“Who else?”

Saga took a deep sigh. “So they didn’t kill you.”

“No thanks to you. Will you still not tell me what you’re doing?”

Saga walked out of the mansion and leaned against the wall. The more Saga opened up to him, the more Kanon could see of his surroundings. He was in some small village. The garden in front of the mansion was strewn with dead bodies.

“I failed,” he said, sliding down the wall and to the ground. “I failed. I couldn’t keep things as they should have been, I couldn’t stop the judges, I couldn’t…I can’t find her weapons. And there’s no time now. They knew I knew, and they attacked first.”

“Saga, who are you talking about?” asked Kanon, letting his spirit drift even closer to his brother’s soul. “All of this…what was it for?”

Saga shook his head.

“For the world. But I failed…”

One of the corpses, the body of a young woman lifted her hands. Then her body rose from the ground as if pulled by invisible strings.

Saga jumped to his feet, his hand flying to his sword. Kannon was so disturbed that his soul almost returned to his body.

The woman gave weak steps towards him.

“My knights. Do not despair,” she said, and her voice seemed like a thousand voices speaking at once. Old women, young women, the sound of them all rising from her mouth as she approached.

Saga gasped, and rushed to kneel down before her.

“I’ve failed you. I’ve failed the world,” said Saga. “The judges have already taken away your weapons.”

“This is not your fault. The times are not right for our victory now. But there is still hope to avoid total destruction,” said the woman, placing her hand on his head. Then she looked up straight into Kanon’s spirit with completely white eyes. Those eyes seemed like they had the purest light Kanon had ever seen. They reminded him of all those pure summer days that he was cursed to never enjoy again. Of all those dawns of his innocent childhood, and all those peaceful dusks when his soul knew calm and joy. “Kanon. Do you remember me?”

Kanon flinched at feeling the pure white light of those eyes upon him and his soul retreated back into his body.

He sat up in his bed with a scream, terrified that the light would have burned him, but the pain from his arm made him remember where he was.

He panted, looking around, feeling as if those eyes could still see him. Feeling their light burning at the back of his mind.


	15. Chapter 15

Mu and Shaka made it to the next village only to find it was already under attack. Buildings ablaze lighted up the way as the skies over them darkened. They ran through the streets, Mu keeping an eye out for any runaway horse that they could use. He had taken the three of them away from the village fast using his powers, but he felt his strength fading fast. They needed something that could help them get away.

As they reached the skirts of the village, they found a small two story house with a cloth covered wagon outside. A huge mountain of a man was driving the wagon and he spurred the horses forward

“Wait! Sir! Please help us!” called Mu, running as fast as he could while carrying Kiki, Shaka close at his heels.

The man stopped and looked back, the metal of a blade shining at his side. He frowned until he realized they were nothing more than children and stopped the horses.

“Jump on the back kids!” he said, and waited until they climbed into the wagon before spurring the horses again.

Mu looked around for and a dozen little faces of boys and girls stared back at him in fear.

“What-“ he started, when he heard a scream of rage behind him. He turned back and saw a girl far away, with long black hair and what looked like a trident pointing at them.

She screamed something more at them, but from that distance, Mu couldn’t understand what she was saying.

He and Shaka sat down among the children while the man kept a steady pace, driving them out from the burning village.

“What else now?” he asked Shaka. “You mentioned a weapon. Is there somewhere we have to go before we get to the bridge?”

The monk crawled towards the entrance of the wagon and looked out to the night sky for a moment, then he came back.

“I don’t see any other way for us to go other than the bridge. If I am to receive the weapon, it’ll have to be on our way there,” he said, settling down next to him.

Mu nodded, understanding nothing.

He took out the card that Shion had given him. He could mentally superimpose a map over the chart he saw, and realized that it wouldn’t take them too long to reach the bridge.

Whatever awaited them would have to come for them fast. In his arms, Kiki started shivering despite being asleep, so he took off his cloak and draped it around him.

Then he looked around at the children in the wagon.

“So you…you’re all like…brothers?” he asked.

The kids didn’t reply, and only looked back at him with fearful eyes. Then one of them at the back leaned forward.

“Yes we are!” he said loudly with a determined grin. The boy next to him, with long black hair, shook his head.

“We’re all orphans,” he said with a sigh. “Mister Aldebaran took us in and has been caring for us.”

Shaka huffed.

“They don’t look like brothers,” he said.

“I was just asking,” said Mu.

“They don’t even look alike.”

“I was wondering, that’s all.”

“I mean, that one with the baby has blue hair, and the baby has green hair. They couldn’t be brothers.”

“Shaka please,” sighed Mu.

The boy carrying the baby growled in a way that showed off his teeth.

“This really is my brother,” he said.

Mu blinked, then turned to Shaka.

“So I was kind of right,” he said with a half smile.

Shaka pouted.

“Not true!” he said, and Mu wanted to pinch his cheeks.

The wagon shook violently and stopped, while the horses neighed at the front.

“What do you want?! Go away!” yelled Aldebaran.

Mu handed Kiki to Shaka and jumped to his feet.

“I’ll go see if I can help!” he said, and got out of the wagon.

“Wait, I’ll go with you!” called the monk, running after him.

Rounding the wagon, Mu saw that the same girl they had left behind was now at the front of the wagon, still holding the trident.

“Begone, insects!” she yelled, waving her trident, and waves of darkness hit the horses, killing them on the spot.

Aldebaran jumped off from the wagon, sword in his hand.

“You’re a demon!” he said. “I won’t let you hurt my children!”

The girl hit her staff against the ground and the shadows started moving, lifting up in tendrils until they took humanoid shape and started attacking Aldebaran.

Mu ran forward, and casted a shield to protect Aldebaran.

The girl, roughly his own age, turned her eyes towards him.

“Aries,” she said, and sent another wave of shadows towards them.

Mu brought up another shield to protect them, when he heard screams from the back of the wagon and looking over there he found that more humanoid shadows were climbing into the wagon with the children.

Shaka rushed towards them and started chanting verses of exorcisms. The shadows screeched at the sound of his voice and retreated enough for some of the children to run away.

The girl lifted up her trident again, but before she could cast any more shadows, Mu sent out the shield against her, hitting her and sending her flying backwards.

“Take them away! Take the children away!” yelled Aldebaran, still fighting against quickly forming hordes of shadows.

Mu ran back to where Shaka was still reciting exorcisms and sent some more of the shadows flying away. The boy with the baby jumped out of the wagon and started running away while Mu helped the surviving children out so they could escape.

“Give me that baby!” yelled the girl, running towards the blue haired boy. She threw the trident and Mu tried to stop it in midair with his telekinesis, but when his mind got a hold of it, he felt as if he was hit over the head. His whole vision turned black and he collapsed, coughing blood.

“Mu!” cried Shaka, kneeling by his side and shaking him.

Mu turned over and pushed himself back up, still coughing blood. He looked ahead and saw the boy on the ground, the trident stabbing him on the back while he still held on to his brother.

“That is my Lord’s future vessel,” said the girl, stalking towards them. “I’ve finally found him. Finally.”

She took back her trident and kicked the boy to push him aside, but he still tried to get up and run.

She stabbed him again.

“You are unworthy of touching him!” she cried.

Shaka let Kiki down and ran up to her, tackling her down to the ground while chanting exorcisms.

She screamed and pushed him away with the trident. Shaka grabbed it and screamed as it burned his skin, but didn’t let go. They rolled on the ground until the shadows underneath rose up and threw Shaka off of her. The monk fell to the ground unmoving and Mu got up on his feet, trying to run towards him, but he felt as if blades were cutting him from the inside with every step and he crumbled back down on the ground.

The girl grabbed back her trident and stood up.

“You all…,” she said, walking towards the boy and his baby brother. She smirked. “She allowed you to be born too late, and my lord was almost fooled. Almost.”

The body of one of the girls moved. Then she sat up. Mu looked at her, his mouth open when he noticed that one of her eyes was gray.

She stood up.

“Pandora,” she said, giving hesitant steps towards the girl, who whirled around, her face deathly pale.

“You! You can’t be here!” she yelled.

The girl with the gray eye smirked. “A queen may move as she pleases on the board. Same as you possessing that corpse!” she said, and ran towards Pandora, who grabbed the baby and tried to run.

But Mu casted a shield to stop her from moving, and forced the earth under her feet to wrap around her legs.

“Give that baby back!” he yelled, but still couldn’t move.

The girl with the gray eye caught up to Pandora and wrestled the trident away from her. The dark energies burnt through her skin but she took no notice of that and punched her in the face so hard she fell down just as Mu’s energy ran off and he could no longer hold her in place. He collapsed again, panting for breath while his insides felt like burning.

Kiki crawled next to him and patted at his face.

“Mu? Mu? What is happening?” he said, tears streaming down his face.

“I won’t let you win! This world belongs to my Lord!” screamed Pandora, clinging to the baby.

“Hiding as a wandering ghost and possessing corpses was a good move,” said the girl with a gray eye. “But I saw through it and it’s over now. I found you.”

“It’s not over! I have my Lord’s vessel!” said Pandora, holding the baby against her chest, trying to scramble away, a manic grin on her face.

The girl lifted the trident and stabbed both the baby and Pandora.

Mu screamed.

“It’s over,” said the girl. “Throughout all our battles, he never wins when I catch you. So return to your vase and await your next reincarnation.”

“Those souls you love so much… We’ll take them down too…,” mumbled Pandora, black blood dripping from her mouth.

A silver vase materialized next to her, and the shadows all around along with all her black blood were drawn into it.

“How…? How could you…?” whispered Mu, looking at the girl still holding on to the trident, even as the dark energy cut through her skin, up her arm and through her chest.

“He cannot incarnate to fight me now,” she told him. Both her eyes turned completely white as the energies of the trident broke open the skin of her face. “But they can still destroy this world. Even if he cannot rule it, he’ll destroy it anyway. Keep going. You can still stop them, but you need to reach the bridge within two days.”

She let go of the trident and stumbled towards him.

“That baby! He was innocent!” yelled Mu.

The girl placed her hand over his forehead, and all his pain faded away. He felt his strength returning.

“You were all innocent. That was his greatest cruelty. This world, with all it’s its darkness, didn’t deserve this unfair judgement. I will keep all of your souls with me, and I will keep them all together. But please…save this world.”

The light in her eyes faded and she collapsed.


	16. Chapter 16

Rhadamanthys returned a day later, and from the first moment, Kanon knew there was something wrong.

“How is your hand doing?” asked Rhadamanthys, undressing.

Kanon, in the bed under the covers, noticed the tension in his back and the sharp moves as he threw away his tunic.

“It’s fine,” he lied. “What happened?”

Rhadamanthys didn’t answer, just sat down on the edge of the bed and started taking off his boots. Kanon caressed his tense back with his good hand.

“You didn’t find the woman that you were looking for?”

“We were drawn into a trap like fools,” muttered Rhadamanthys, getting under the covers next to Kanon. “Saga set up a decoy and made us think we had found Pandora for long enough for her to reveal herself and-… And she’s gone now.”

“Pandora?” asked Kanon, thinking back to that strange woman talking with Saga. He felt a knot forming in his throat.

He had lied to Rhadamanthys when he had said that he didn’t know where Saga was, and now Saga had gone and cause the death of a woman that Rhadamanthys had been looking for.

Regret burned at the pit of Kanon’s stomach.

“Don’t mind it. It’s better if you don’t know who she was,” said Rhadamanthys, rolling to lie on his side. He cupped Kanon’s face. “We’ll still win anyway.”

“Rhada I have no idea what you do or what you’re even fighting against. All I know is that you want my brother dead. Not that I blame you but-“

Rhadamanthys silenced him with a kiss.

“You wouldn’t understand it,” he said when they parted. “But I must ensure my Lord’s victory in this Holy War.”

“Hmph. Holy war? What are you supposed to be? A saint?” asked, Kanon tapping the tip of Rhadamanthys’ nose.

“Idiot,” he said, and kissed Kanon’s finger. He wrapped his arm around Kanon’s waist and pulled him close. “Now go to sleep.”

Kanon relaxed against him and closed his eyes, lulled by the warmth of the other’s body.

He dreamed of Saga.

In his dreams he saw him in a mausoleum, opening coffins, looking inside each and every one of them until he opened the last one and gasped.

“I found it! I found it!” he whispered, pulling what looked like a necklace with golden beads.

There was an explosion outside and Saga jolted. He looked around and found a loose tile on a corner. He pulled it out and dug a small hole, put the necklace there and covered it with the tile before running out of the mausoleum.

A second explosion woke up Kanon with a gasp.

“What’s wrong?” asked Rhadamanthys, voice groggy with sleep.

“Nothing, nothing,” said Kanon, burrowing against him.

He felt oddly tired, as if all the energy had gone from his body. And yet, his heart was racing and a feeling of dread rising from his stomach made him feel like he was going to throw up.

He rolled around so that he was facing away from Rhadamanthys and took several deep breaths, willing his heart to stop, yet the more he tried to calm down, the more exhausted he felt, as if pulled into a fitful sleep. He tried to keep his eyes open, but sleep overtook him.

He dreamed of Saga, on the coast when they were children and spent long afternoons collecting shells and looking for crabs.

In his dream, he saw his brother as he had been during their childhood. As Kanon still remembered him when he thought back to those times. A gangly child taking hesitant steps on the sand, with the setting sun before him.

He looked at that child that was an almost exact copy of him, and realized this dream was the final parting between them, as their souls drifted further and further away; the gates of death separating them now.

Kanon fell down to his knees over the sand, and cried. He cried and cried with his whole heart and with his soul that now felt so alone in this world.

A woman sat down next to him. A white dress, white skin, and white hair. As if light itself had taken on a physical form just to come sit down next to him.

He couldn’t see her face, but she felt that one gray eye staring at him. He knew the weight of that stare. He had felt it when he had died so many years ago.

“Even after everything he did. Even now…,” he told her, looking up at that child who kept looking out at the setting sun over the waves of the sea. “I still hoped he would come back. I refused to believe what he became. And even now…why? Why do I miss him so much?”

He punched the sand.

“You should have waited for me!” he yelled to Saga. “We came to this world together! You can’t leave me like this! You can't leave without me!”

But Saga’s soul could no longer hear him, and the child in the sand didn’t look back.

The woman reached out to hold Kanon’s hand.

“He performed above and beyond what could have ever been demanded of a human heart,” she said. “But the stars spelled a doomed fate for him from the start. Despite everything, he died as a hero.”

“What does being a hero mean? When you die alone, having betrayed everyone who ever loved you?”

The woman pointed out towards the setting sun that Saga stared at. Soft blue lights sparkled over the ocean waters, and as Kanon looked at them, he could see they were souls. Young and old. Happy and sad. The silver lines of their lives entwined, all of them drawing back into Saga’s soul, and then, following back over the sand toward Kanon. He reached out to touch the light and saw flashes of their lives, beautiful in their mundanity. Eating and sleeping and working and loving. Hating and crying and despairing. All of the emotions and actions that made life what it was.

Their lines reached back to him for their continuity.

“This is all there is for heroes,” said the woman. “I cannot offer you more than the promise of the continuation of all these lives. The continuation of all life in this world.”

“You offered me another breath of life when I died. Enough to continue existing in this world. But you did not offer me this. You offered it to Saga,” he said.

“It was not your time then. It was his.”

Kanon fell silent, and looked back towards Saga’s childish form, his brother who could no longer look back at him.

“If his stars spelled a doomed fate, then so do mine,” he said, standing up. “I was minutes behind him in arriving to this world, so my own end must be near. It makes no sense to fight fate at this point. Saga and I will meet again soon enough. But…there is a soul I would like to meet again.”

“I know.”

Kanon sighed. “Ah, he really grew up to be such a dashing young man. How I wish we could have had more than a few nights together,” he said, and looked back down at the woman. “Could you promise me that, as our souls go on, there will be a happy ending for me? One where I can keep them both by my side?”

The woman nodded. “The stars will spell joy for you just as they have spelled disaster. That is my promise, and the promise of the heavens.”

* * *

When Kanon woke up, Rhadamanthys was gone. He rubbed at his eyes and found fresh tears down his cheeks.

He scoffed a laugh.

“Stupid fucking Saga,” he muttered, and got up from the bed.

He found a glass of blood on the bedside table with a note that said “Be back soon”, which made him smile. He drank from it as he walked towards the window.

He pushed open the curtains and looked up at the night sky. From the position of the moon, it looked to be around midnight, with clear skies and a pleasing weather. And it looked like the weather would still be nice for a couple nights, too.

A pretty good night to die on, if Kanon had to say so.

As good as he was going to get.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I only just realized this, but Kanon's plea to Athena mirrors Aioros' plea to Athena. Damn, if I was smart I would have included it in Ice Melody too, and then I would have managed to echo the theme of the sub series through each of the different fics to create a better thematic resonance *facepalm* and this is why you plan your series beforehand kids. Don't make the same mistakes that I do!  
> Hmmm, maybe I'll revise Ice Melody and try to include it later...


	17. Chapter 17

Aphrodite was having tea in the garden, the night Rhadamanthys attacked. The specter descended next to him, fully armored for war.

“Well, finally,” said the prince, setting his tea cup on the table and standing up. “I thought you would never appear.”

Rhadamanthys lifted an eyebrow at him.

“You knew of my attack?” he asked. Beyond them, cries of battle arose, and the clang of steel echoed from the front of the castle.

“You and your Lord of death are not subtle at all. A quick review of the lords of the dark houses who suddenly vanished along with a good reading of the stars would easily give the answer,” said Aphrodite, crossing his arms and looking at him up and down. “Hmmm, a mighty dramatic outfit. I didn’t expect that. Seems unfair that we don’t get armors too.”

Rhadamanthys narrowed his eyes at him.

“You’ve been touched by the power of the goddess too,” he said, stepping towards him.

Aphrodite licked one of his fangs and smirked.

“Just a bit. But I’m betting it’ll be enough,” he whispered, feeling the power of the goddess awakening in him, shining in his eyes and making the night world seem as bright as midday.

Rhadamanthys lunged at him, and rose vines wrapped around him. The multitude of flowers all over the garden started expelling a strong sweet scent that made him cough.

“Coward!” he yelled at the prince, who took out a small knife.

“You are an idiot who didn’t even realize he was walking into a trap,” said Aphrodite, cutting at his palm and letting his blood fall on the grass. The ground shook. “I don’t think you even know what a coward is!”

He laughed as the ground under Rhadamanthys opened to swallow him up.

Rhadamanthys roared and broke away from the rose vines. Sensing his power, Aphrodite unsheathed his sword and rushed to stab him as more vines grew from the bushes and wrapped themselves around him, but Rhadamanthys saw him and expelled a wave of his power all around him, sending him flying back and opening a crater on the earth that tried to swallow him.

Cursing under his breath, Aphrodite jumped to his feet and ran into the castle, through the main hall and up the curved marble staircase.

“A noble without honor is no noble at all!” called Rhadamanthys, running after him.

“What honor is there in crushing the weak and bowing to the strong?!” yelled Aphrodite, running through a hallway towards a set of double doors and opening them. Rhadamanthys close on his heels.

“As long as the weak are weak, they do not deserve the mercy of the strong!”

Inside the room where Aphrodite had run into, the walls were lined with mirrors, while rows upon rows of mirrors stood here and there all over the space of the room. Thin and wide, low and ceiling tall. Aphrodite stood in front of the first one, his image repeated again and again on the mirrors all around. Rhadamanthys halted in his step at the sight, then growled.

“So you hide behind these glasses? More proof of your cowardice."

Aphrodite lifted his bleeding hand and touched the surface of the mirror behind him. The glass shifted and waved, turning liquid.

“You are a stupid brute and nothing more,” he said, stepping into the glass, his voice then echoing from all the mirrors in the room.

Rhadamanthys roared in frustration, and tried to punch the nearest mirror, but his hand sunk into it’s surface as if punching into water, covering his fist with a shocking cold. He stepped away from the mirror, and Aphrodite’s slender hand came out of the mirror behind him, patting the side of his face, where the rose thorns had torn open his skin.

“Let’s see what your blood says about you,” he said, retreating back into the mirror with a laugh before Rhadamanthys could whirl around and catch him.

“Face me you coward!” yelled Rhadamanthys “Your goddess is a weak fake that cries about death while delivering it with a hypocrite’s hand! The Lord of the underworld is the greatest power in the world! There is no power as great as death itself!”

He walked among the mirrors, looking for Aphrodite but seeing only his own reflection.

“Rhada,” laughed a voice behind him, and he turned around to find Kanon smirking at him from within one of the mirrors. “What’s this nonsense you’re saying? Come, come, let’s just go back home.”

Rhadamanthys’ heart skipped a beat, before he got a hold of himself and turned his back on the mirror to keep looking for Aphrodite.

“I won’t fall for your pathetic illusions,” he muttered.

Kanon’s figure appeared on another one of the mirrors and pouted at him. The resemblance so perfect that Rhadamanthys’ breath caught in his throat.

“You’re being so ridiculous Rhada. Come here. You’re making me angry now,” he said.

Rhadamanthys growled. And grabbed at the silver frame of the mirror, crushing it under his gloved hand.

“Aphrodite,” he muttered. “I’ll tear you apart limb by limb, and none of your illusions will save you.”

Kanon’s form vanished from the mirror, and a laughter echoed all over the room.

“Who says they’re illusions? Do you really think I wouldn’t be able to track him back through your blood?” asked Aphrodite. “Your blood tells me all I need to know of your heart, and your heart led me to this little vampire.”

The prince appeared on another mirror, holding an unconscious Kanon in his arms.

“But he’s pretty enough. I can see why he’s buried so deep in your heart,” he said, and pulled him up to kiss his lips.

Rhadamanthys roared and ran into the mirror.

Aphrodite cackled and ran out of the mirror.

He clapped, and all the mirrors in the room cracked, then he ran out of the room, panting for breath.

“Good luck getting out of there,” he muttered, and ran up the spiral staircase that led to the top of the central tower of the castle where Deathmask kept using all of his power to draw the souls of the dead to take over the bodies of Rhadamanthys’ soldiers.

“I got him!” cried Aphrodite “I got the wyvern! The idiot fell for my illusion!”

“Did you kill him?” asked Deathmask, eyes closed in concentration as he held up his hands, a circle of blue fire burning over him.

“I caught him in the mirrors. He can’t get out of there!”

“He can definitely get out of there.”

“Deathmask, I’m _trying_ to be positive here. What’s going on with his army?”

“His army’s done. I’m getting rid of the last ones but forget about that. He’s the problem.”

“Not unless he gets out of the mirror and he’s not-“

Rhadamanthys kicked the door to the top of the tower, sending it flying off its hinges.

“I’m never being optimistic ever again,” groaned Aphrodite.

Deathmask lowered his arms and the circle of blue fire extended on the ground all around him and Aphrodite.

“It’s time to fight like a man,” muttered Rhadamanthys.

Aphrodite readied his sword. “That’s fine with me. Don’t think I can’t do that too,” he said.

Deathmask stepped next to him, clenching his hands into fists around which blue fire started burning.

“You can both attack me at once. Not even both of you can defeat me,” said Rhadamanthys.

Aphrodite smirked. “You’re going to regret that,” he said, and moved forward, lifting his sword.

And he froze.

His smirk vanished.

“I don’t think we’re in a position to see if he’ll regret it or now,” said a cold voice behind them.

Deathmask turned around and found a man with long white hair.

“Minos go away! This is my battle!” said Rhadamanthys.

“There is no battle that is yours. This is the Lord’s war, and we have to win it no matter how,” said Minos.

Silvery threads shone under the moonlight extending from the tips of Minos’ fingers to wrap around Aphrodite.

“Bastard!” yelled Deathmask, and opened a rift from the underworld right under Minos and forcing him to back away and jump aside with a smile even as he barely escaped having his soul separated from his mortal body.

“Too late, just die,” said the Judge, and Aphrodite screamed, starting to bleed from a thousand wounds all over his body as he crumbled to the ground.

“I’ll take care of this, Minos,” said Rhadamanthys.

Deathmask tried to reach out to hold Aphrodite, but he froze in place.

“Then take care of it already,” said Minos. “Hurry, we need to find the other chosen souls of the goddess.”

“I am no executioner!”

“That hipocritical pretense or honor will ruin you one day,” said Minos, and turned to leave.

Deathmask grunted, and blood from dozens of wounds all over his body started staining his clothes. He collapsed onto the ground, coughing up blood. He could feel himself falling apart from the inside, but he used the last of his strength to drag his dying body towards Aphrodite.

“A-Aphro…dite…,” he said.

The prince snickered.

“Hey, jackass,” he said, looking at Rhadamanthys. “You could…make yourself a little less trash and…bury us…together.”

Rhadamanthys shook his head, and walked away from them.

Deathmask grabbed a hold of the prince’s hand and entwined their fingers.

“I’ll hold on to you… Even…in the beyond,” he said, placing a kiss on his cheek.

“This life…It was… beautiful to live it with you.”

“You were the only beautiful thing in this world of death and pain.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of a more casual chapter. I liked the interactions, but I was almost about to cut this scene. If it hadn't been for the encouragement of my lovely beta Callie, I would have just cut off the parts with Aphrodite and Deathmask. But reading it over now, it really does seem interesting in a way U,U So this chapter is especially dedicated to her. Thank you for all your help Callie!


	18. Chapter 18

Shaka woke up to the sound of digging. He sat up and rubbed his eyes, but pain all over his body made him whine. The sound of digging stopped and he looked over to the side where he had heard it.

Mu stood there, a shovel in his hand, filling a big grave. Next to Shaka, covered by a small blanket was Kiki still asleep.

“What happened?” asked Shaka, getting up from the ground. He realized he had been covered by Mu’s cloak and pulled it up.

“I don’t know,” said, Mu, and kept filling the grave.

Shaka looked around and saw several other, smaller graves recently filled. Images from the previous battle came back to the front of his mind and he startled.

“Pandora. She… What happened?”

“She’s dead,” said Mu. “Only a few of the children survived.”

“You didn’t kill her.”

“No.”

“Mu…”

Mu finally stopped shoveling dirt and looked back at him.

“Shaka. The goddess you talked about. Did she have a gray eye?”

“Did you see her? Did she save us?”

Mu resumed his shoveling. “I saw a massacre. I saw…I saw murder, and I just…I can’t keep going for a goddess like that.”

“Mu please…,” begged Shaka, placing his hand over his arm.

Mu pulled away from his touch.

“You knew her. You knew what she was. But a goddess who willingly murders babies is no goddess. She’s a demon,” he said.

Shaka let his shoulders fall.

“That baby was the future vessel for the lord of the Underworld,” he said. “Now he will not be able to incarnate into the world.”

“I can’t accept it. I can… No, Shaka. I refuse to fight for that.”

“If he would be allowed to incarnate, then he would kill all the babies in the world. If that is the price for their chance at life… I can only thank her for taking that blood from my hands. I would have done the same if given the chance.”

Mu threw the shovel away.

“No! Don’t even say that!” he yelled. “You’re not a murderer! And I refuse to be one either! I won’t keep going. No.”

Shaka looked down, silent for a moment. Then he looked up straight at Mu’s eyes.

“Then I will keep going alone,” he said. He took the star chart from one of the pockets of the cloak and gave it back to Mu. “Take care of Kiki. I don’t think I’ll be able to come back, but don’t tell him I died. It’ll make him sad.”

Mu draped the cloak over Shaka’s shoulders.

“Stay,” he asked him. “If you go…”

“I have to go. My soul was chosen for this. My birth arranged from the start. I cannot stop now,” said the monk, but refrained from saying that it was the same for Mu’s soul.

Mu nodded.

“I see. I suppose…there’s no use in trying to convince you not to go then. Although… I really wish you would stay,” he said.

Shaka took a deep breath. In truth, he was terrified of going too. He had prepared his mind all his life only to strengthen it for this very moment.

But he had never felt as weak as he did then.

He turned around and took a few steps away. He heard Mu shuffling behind him, and he hesitated, his heart starting to race in his chest. He closed his eyes and prayed to the goddess.

_‘These mortal attachments burdening on the soul. If they weren’t so delightful, escaping from this pain would not be so difficult. Goddess, forgive me. I have not been able to stare at death to face to face without fear’_

He turned around and went back to Mu, grabbing his arm and kissing him before he could react.

Mu gasped, his cheeks tinted pink.

“Sh-Sha…”

“I didn’t want to go before doing that,” he said, then turned around and ran away from him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love the shakaxmu ship. I wish they were easier to write. They're just so adorable together.


	19. Chapter 19

Shaka could roughly sense the path to the underworld though his spiritual training, but it was still slow going since he walked hesitantly down certain paths only to backtrack and have to change course again and again.

He looked up at the stars now and then, but they didn’t tell him anything that he didn’t know already.

They told him that he needed Mu to reach the bridge.

And he needed him fast.

But still Shaka kept going, despite the hesitation in his heart and the worry that even if he was slowly approaching the bridge, he was no closer to getting the weapon of the goddess. So even if he made it there on time, he would not be able to do much if he arrived there empty handed.

A sound from the trees to his right jolted him out of his thoughts and his soul almost jumped out of his body.

“Who’s there?!” he yelled, his voice sounding too loud in the stillness of the forest.

A man with short blonde hair wearing full armor walked out from among the trees.

“There you are,” he said. “She has you all scattered, but you drop like flies as soon as we find you.”

Shaka backed away, but knew immediately that he had no hope of outrunning him. The man reached forward and grabbed him by the arm.

“Hmmm, you’re usually in pairs,” mused the man, hoisting Shaka up in the air by his arm. “Where’s the other one?”

“There’s no one with me,” muttered Shaka, trying to kick the man, but ended up thrown onto the ground for his efforts.

The man kicked him in the stomach and then stepped on his back.

“Liar,” he said. “Now, where’s the other one?”

“There’s no one else!” cried Shaka, trying to crawl away.

“I’m here!” yelled a childish voice, and they both looked behind them to find Kiki floating in midair, lifting a rock as big as himself with his telekinetic powers.

He threw the rock at the man, who easily caught it with one hand.

“A child? She had you all born way too late,” he said with a sigh. “This isn’t even a battle at this point.”

“Kiki run!” yelled Shaka, jumping to his feet.

But the man swatted him down with his free hand, making him fall back down with a ringing in his ears from the strength of the blow.

The man crushed the rock with his hand and stalked towards Kiki.

“Your stupid goddess has sent children to battle,” he said. “There is no honor in defeating you. No honor in fighting on her name.”

Kiki vanished and reappeared behind him next to Shaka.

The man turned around, growling in annoyance, when a purple blur appeared behind him. Mu teleported, sword in hand and swinging it at the man’s head.

But he whirled around in the last second and caught the blade in his steel glove.

Mu let go of the sword, jumped back, teleported next to Kiki and shaka, grabbed them both, and teleported them away from danger.

He took them away through three different teleporting jumps, as his powers weren’t strong enough to put a safe distance between them and the man with a single one, and then collapsed on the ground, panting for breath.

“You came back,” whispered Shaka, his heart racing in his chest.

Mu pushed back some stray locks of his hair and took a few deep breaths before he could speak again.

“Yeah,” he said and shook his head. “Look, I don’t… I don’t know what your goddess is planing or what this war is all about, but… Shion trusted in her. You trust in her, even after everything. So I’m just…I’m just going to trust in you and Shion.”

He stood up and patted his dusty pants.

“And I couldn’t leave you alone in this, no matter what,” he said finally, picking up Kiki to carry him in his arms.

Shaka gasped, feeling hope blooming in his heart. He smiled.

“Thank you,” he whispered, standing up.

Mu extended his hand to him, and when Shaka grasped it, he entwined their fingers.

“Nothing to thank me for. I shouldn’t have even thought of abandoning you,” he said, and placed a kiss over Shaka’s hand. “We’ll get through this. I promise. I’ll take you to the bridge even if it is the last thing I do.”

Shaka nodded, knowing in his heart that it might be the last thing they both would do, but still unwilling to face the end alone.


	20. Chapter 20

They walked for another full day, always keeping guard that the man they had met before might be following them, and then stopped to rest by nightfall.

Mu started a small fire so they could warm up before continuing their way, and Shaka sat beside it, with Kiki fast asleep next to him.

“Just a little bit more,” said Mu, wrapping a torn piece of his cloak around a stick to make a simple torch. “We should make it to the bridge by dawn if we hurry.”

Shaka nodded, and scooted a bit closer to him.

“It’s cold,” he said.

“We don’t have any more blankets, but I can go get more wood for the fire,” he said.

“No. Let’s just stay closer,” whispered Shaka, letting his head fall against the other’s shoulder.

Mu relaxed, a small embarrassed smile on his lips.

“You know, I never thought that you would like me like that,” he said, reaching out to caress Shaka’s long blonde hair.

“Me neither. It was quite the surprise for me too,” laughed Shaka. “But when faced with this fate. All I wanted was to confront it with you.”

Mu held his hand and placed a kiss on his forehead.

“Everything will be alright. I promise. We’ll be there soon, and afterwards we can forget all about this. We’ll go to a safe place, and we can build a house there. Or we could go back to your monastery, and try to rebuild it. Kiki and I can do it easily enough, but you’ll have to tell us how the repairs should go.”

Shaka sighed and closed his eyes, looking at all the futures he might have had with Mu. He saw first a small house near a creek where Kiki could play. Then the slow rebuilding of his monastery, being lifted back to life one stone at a time. All those futures played out in his mind like unreachable candy, feeling as if they were just beyond his fingertips, even though he knew that in reality they were as close to him as the clouds in the sky.

Something like a great bird crashed against the tree in front of them and they jumped to their feet. Shaka scrambled to grab Kiki while Mu set the torch on fire, brandishing it like a sword.

From the wreckage of the trees stumbled out a slim tall man with long hair.

“Where are you kids?” he called. “I know you’re here. I saw you. I mean, in a dream I saw you but I also know you’re really really here. Kids?”

The man stumbled forward, hands extended, as if he couldn’t see anything. Mu, Shaka and Kiki kept a desperate silence, not daring to even move for fear they would give away their presence.

“Alright, I can smell you, so I know you’re here,” said the man, pushing some of his wild hair back. “So I’m going to have to do a leap of faith here and give you guys this thing.”

He pulled out a rosary from within his cloak and held it out in his extended arm. Shaka gasped at the sight of the moonlight filtering through the beads in golden sparkles.

The man then flinched, letting the rosary fall to the ground.

“Shit, this thing burns!” he cried, holding his hand against his chest.

Shaka motioned to run forward to get the rosary, but Mu stopped him.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“Ah, you don’t know me but I’m Kanon, Saga’s twin brother. Who I hope you _also_ never got to meet. But whatever, the goddess sent me to give this to you, but I’m a vampire, and this thing burns like the sun every time it’s exposed to light. God, I hate my life,” he said, shaking his hand. “And now I’m fucking blind, dammit.”

“Step back so we can grab the rosary,” ordered Mu.

Kanon walked away.

“Yes, yes, you’re pretty smart kids, uh? And that thing is a rosary? Funny…Now hurry. Rhada might be here any minute. You need to be fast. Don’t stop until you’ve reached the bridge.”

Mu grabbed the rosary and handed it to Shaka. In the moonlight, it had a soft, comforting warmth.

“I never met Saga, but I heard from the goddess that he was looking for her weapons. It’s good to see he succeeded.”

Kanon sighed.

“Uh, that’s debatable,” he said, his shoulders slumping. “Everything Saga did… his morality is kind of questionable, let’s just leave it be. Oh, and another thing. I’m keeping one of the beads.”

He pulled one of them from his pocket and showed it to them, shielding it from the light of the moon. Then he set it on an earing on his left ear, covered from the light by the fall of his hair.

“I’ll need it soon,” he said. “Gods, I’m starving. You kids wouldn’t let me take a quick bite from you? For the trip?”

“No,” said Mu.

“Just a little bit?

“Definitely not.”

“Did the goddess give any other instructions?” asked Shaka, observing the rosary before hanging it around his neck.

“Hmm, no. In fact, she didn’t tell me anything. I’ve just been blindly following my dreams and visions of the future and they led me to you. Heh, blindly. There’s a joke to be made there.”

“So we should keep going towards the bridge,” said Mu. “We’re pretty close now. Let’s keep walking and after I recover a bit, I’ll be able to take us there.”

An armored man came out of the shadows.

“I’m afraid this is the end of the journey for you,” he said.

“Rhada!” cried Kanon. “Wait, Rhada don’t-“

He tried to rush towards him, when he found himself frozen on the spot.

“There’s your little vampire,” said a cold voice behind him. “I told you he would be a headache in the end.”

“Let him go Minos. I’ll deal with him as soon as I get rid of the kids,” said the blonde man.

Mu grabbed a hold of Shaka and Kiki and transported them out of there, as far as his dwindling power could take them.


	21. Chapter 21

Rhadamanthys was furious when the children vanished, but thankfully he had let Minos deal with them, since he thought it beneath himself to execute children.

Instead, he took Kanon back to the castle.

“Are you going to kill me now?” he couldn’t help but ask once Rhadamanthys set him down on the castle grounds.

“I’ll present you for judgement at the court of the lord of the Underworld. Your fate will be decided there,” said Rhadamanthys. Kanon could hear his voice moving away, and he tried to follow after him with hesitant steps.

“So, you think I’m gonna get the death sentence there? Because if it’s going to end up in the same thing, I don’t want to waste any more time.”

“Where are you going? I set a barrier around the castle. You can’t escape this time,” said Rhadamanthys, grabbing a hold of his arm and pulling him forward.

Kanon followed, but tripped on his own feet and fell against him.

“What the hell are you trying now Kanon?” growled Rhadamanthys, pulling him up.

“Sorry, you’re gonna have to be a bit more patient with me here,” said Kanon, standing up straight and reaching out to grab Rhadamanthys’ arm. “I’m blind now. Long story, but I guess you know it by now. Anyway, when were you going to tell me that you guys killed Saga? I would have expected you to at least let me know.”

Rhadamanthys fell silent for a moment, then grasped the side of Kanon’s face to pull him up. The vampire could feel his intense stare falling down on him.

“What happened to your eyes?” asked Rhadamanthys, letting go of him before picking him up in a bridal style. Kanon’s arms went up to wrap around his neck, trying to hold on to something.

“Nothing, nothing. I can walk just fine. I mean, well, I don’t know, it’s just my eyes. I’m just blind now,” he said, biting his lower lip and wondering how much it would be good to reveal about going to look for the goddess’ weapon.

After all, if Rhadamanthys didn’t know that he was blind, then they must have arrived near the end of his talk with the children.

His mind reeled and his thoughts spun in a circle.

“Was it the goddess’ weapon?” asked Rhadamanthys.

Losing all hope, Kanon fell against him as he felt himself being carried upstairs.

“Yeah,” he muttered

“Since when did you have it? Were you planning on betraying me from the beginning?”

Kanon grabbed a handful of Rhadamanthys’ robe.

“I just got it. And I was never planning to betray you in any way. But when were you going to tell me that your objective was to kill all life on the planet?”

Rhadamanthys set him down on a bed.

“It would have been better if you didn’t find out until we had won the war. I planned to keep you until we had assured victory, and then claim you as my prize in the war. But now I see that with Saga gone, the goddess has claimed you for her warriors too.”

“Wow, so romantic,” muttered Kanon with a huff. “I don’t think your lord will let you keep me now, though.”

“We have won already. Even though your goddess managed to defeat Aiakos, as soon as Minos executes those two children, the game will be over and all her warriors will be gone,” said Rhadamanthys. “You will face trial in due time. I expect you might be sentenced to only a few decades of torment for this insane last ditch effort.”

“Just a few decades? Wow, what a deal!” snapped back Kanon.

“Shut up. You’re a vampire. You’ll live for centuries. Although living is a debatable term for your existence. I expect that will be taken into account at your trial too.”

Kanon huffed and hunched down on the bed, feeling hopeless that all his sacrifices and everything he had endured would come to nothing.

The goddess had tasked him with helping to stop the end of the world, yet here he was, captured again and leaving those two defenseless children at the hands of a murderous maniac.

Rhadamanthys grabbed his chin and pulled up his face to press a soft kiss to his lips.

“You were upset over Saga,” he said. “And she took advantage of it to sway you to work for her. I’ll appeal that at your trial.”

Kanon scoffed.

“Amazing, uh? Aren’t you being generous?”

“I am in fact being unusually generous with you.”

“So you don’t do this with all your war prisoners? Could have fooled me,” said Kanon, reaching out to hug him. Rhadamanthys let himself be pulled into his embrace.

“Idiot. I don’t know why I even love you,” muttered the Wyvern , pushing him down on the bed and kissing him.

Kanon sighed, melting into the kiss and caressing Rhadamanthys’ back over his tunic. The heat of his body was just right to make him feel alive again, and it gave him a warm feeling that made him never want to separate from him.

“You know, before I’m taken to trial, you could take it upon yourself to rough me up a little,” said Kanon, pulling the other closer with his legs, feeling their crotches rub against one another and causing a shiver down Rhadamanthys’ back. “What do you think? You want to try your spoils of war a bit early?”

Kanon licked his lips and pulled open the collar of his robe, hoping he would make a tempting enough image, even if he still felt lost in a sea of darkness.

Rhadamanthys was silent for a moment, before taking off Kanon’s robe and starting to open his pants.

“I already had you before,” he said.

“Oh, seduced by the enemy,” laughed Kanon. “So scandalous.”

Rhadamanthys kissed him.

“Are you really fine? Aside from your eyes, are you-?”

“I’m fine. Why don’t you make me forget about my damn eyes. Make me see stars. You can still do that now that I’m blind.”

Rhadamanthys gave a grumble of annoyance, but started kissing down the column of Kanon’s neck, making him sigh in contentment.

That night, Kanon memorizes all of Rhadamanthys with his body. Feeling every part of him and memorizing the steady beat of his heart.

And then they do it again.

And again.

Until Rhadamanthys fills him again and collapses on top of him.

“You’re always so insatiable,” said Rhadamanthys, panting for breath above him.

Kanon writhes underneath him, passing his hands through his hair, feeling the warmth of the bead on his ear, reminding him that he had been granted only another night before having to meet his fate.

“You say that, as if you hadn’t had your fill every time I asked. Hngh, I’m so full,” he says, taking the bead and rolling over to his side, slipping it into his mouth and holding it between his molars.

Rhadamanthys caressed his back and placed a kiss on his shoulderblade.

“I might end up taking you in the bath again,” he said, rolling him back to face him and pulling him closer. “I think I want to make up for all the time we’ve lost now.”

Kanon closed his eyes and nodded. Then pulled him closer and kissed him, putting all his passion into the kiss. Wanting to tell him how much he loved him.

He cracked the bead between his teeth, and felt the burnt of the liquid sunlight inside fall into his mouth.

And into Rhadamanthys’ mouth.

The Wyvern pushed him away, coughing at the burn of the light inside his mouth.

“What have you done?!” he roared.

The light burned Kanon from the inside, but he could barely focus on his own pain. He grabbed the wyvern and held his body against him.

“Let’s go together.”


	22. Chapter 22

Mu took them as far as he could, before reappearing and falling down to sit on the ground, panting for breath.

“We’re…close…very close,” he said. “Just give me a moment. I’ll have us there now.”

“No. Mu, let’s walk instead. You’re very pale now,” said Shaka, crouching down next to him.

Mu shook his head.

“I just need a moment,” he said.

A flurry of birds went up in a spooked startle a while away, and Mu jumped to his feet.

“They’re probably following us,” he said. “Let’s keep going and I’ll take us there in a moment.”

They kept walking forward, and Shaka could now feel a strange sensation on the air around them. As if there was some heavy darkness over them.

“We’re very close,” he whispered. Around his neck, the warmth of the rosary because erratic, going from warm to icy cold and back to warm again.

“It’s right over that hill,” said Mu, panting. “Just a little bit more.”

Shaka let Kiki down on the ground to be able to help Mu keep walking.

“We could stop for a moment. You need to catch your breath,” he said.

“No,” said Mu, shaking his head. “We need to make it there. The goddess said we…only had two days.”

They kept going, with Mu having to lean more and more against Shaka, but still holding on.

At the other side of the hill, they saw a great cliff opening up, and on the other side a dark stony mountain rising up, both connected by a stone bridge filled with corpses strewn all around. Men and women, young and old, unarmed and still holding their weapons, all the corpses seemed to stare at them from their empty eye sockets when they approached.

“We’re already here,” said Mu, as they stepped into the bridge. “What…What should we do now?”

Shaka took off the rosary from his neck, instead holding it up in his hand.

“The gate is open,” he said, looking up at the gaping maw in the stone mountain, from where he could smell the stench of rot and decay. The smell of the underworld. “I need to close it.”

Mu nodded and let go of him.

“Then I won’t stop you. We’ll be here,” he said, grabbing Kiki’s hand and stepping behind him. “I told you…We would make it here.”

Shaka smiled at him.

“I always knew you would. My soul has followed you lives after lives. And I’ll continue to follow you, no matter what,” he told him, then looked forward at the gate of the underworld and started chanting the spells of exorcism and of banishing that he had spent all his life learning.

They came to him as easy as breathing. He recited them again and again, turning the beads of the rosary in his fingers and feeling them vibrate with energy, conducting the light inside them to seal the gate and close the last opportunity of escape for the army of the underworld.

His fingers stopped and his fell silent, frozen in place.

“You have a beautiful voice,” said the cold voice of Minos, walking out of the mountain and laughing. “But this is your end.”

Mu pulled up Kiki and stepped next to Shaka, casting a shield of protection that cut off Minos’ control over him. Shaka coughed, struggling to breathe again. The control had stopped even his lungs from breathing.

“Keep going!” said Mu, holding the shield up.

Minos walked up to them, a smirk on his lips.

“You are so cute,” he said, looking down at them. “You almost look like a family like that.”

Shaka kept chanting, the rosary glowing in his hands, and the smirk vanished from Minos’ face. He slammed his fist against the shield and Mu cried out in pain, falling down to one knee, but still holding up the shield.

“Pathetic! You beg for a few years of a painful existence from your goddess!” he yelled, slamming the shield again. “There is no love to have in life! There is only the eternity of death!”

Mu fell to his knees, still holding on to the shield. The mountain shook as Shaka kept reciting his exorcisms.

Behind Minos, the stone around the entrance to the mountain started falling, crumbling in pieces.

On the horizon, the sun rose, bathing everything in a golden light.

The rosary on Shaka’s hands shone just as bright.

Minos slammed his fist into the shield again, breaking it apart.

“Where was your goddess when my own flower died?! Why wouldn’t she grant him a single breath of life more?! All she did was steal his soul away so that I couldn’t find him even in death!” he yelled, reaching for Shaka.

Mu stepped between them, taking out a knife from his belt to stop him, but Minos swatted it away from his hands and grabbed him by the front of his robe.

Shaka, tears streaming down his face, kept chanting.

“Where is your goddess now?” he told him, and his threads wrapped around his neck. “She cannot help you now.”

The threads cut through his neck in a single move, and Mu almost gasped, before he fell to the ground.

Kiki screamed, holding on to Shaka’s robes.

Minos then reached towards the monk, but his hands hit against another shield. He looked behind Shaka to the small child crying.

“Even you will fight for her?” wondered Minos. “She picks you ever so loyal.”

He slammed his fist against the shield and it collapsed, Kiki crumbling to the ground screaming and holding his head.

“But there’s nothing more to fight for,” said the judge, reaching for Shaka, when he froze.

A sword stabbed him from the back. He looked down to find the blade coming out of his chest.

“H-how…?” he asked.

Kiki kept screaming, his powers releasing his rage, and all around, the swords of the fallen soldiers rose up on their own, flying around Minos and stabbing him again and again.

Shaka kept chanting.

Behind Minos, the entrance to the underworld collapsed once Shaka completed the recitations. The beads of the rosary cracked and the light inside them covered him, consuming his life energy and extending their golden glow all over the mountain.

Minos sighed, seeing the light all around him. His own armor started smoking upon contact.

“What a fitting ending,” he said, and looked down at them. “But we’ll meet again.”

He fell over, the light burning off both his body and armor.

Kiki kept crying.

“Don’t cry,” said Shaka, but when Kiki looked up, he saw him as only a faint specter glowing in the dawning sun and sitting next to Mu’s body. “Everything will be fine now. And he was right. We will meet again. Keep going. We’ll be waiting for you, but this life that you’ve been granted…live it fully.”

With that, Shaka faded into the light.


	23. Chapter 23

Athena collected the last soul of his warriors and fled away from the mountain. She would bid her time and come back to collect that one tiny soul that she hadn’t chosen herself, but that had shown so much courage. She wanted it for herself too.

Hades would no doubt come after her and demand to be returned the souls that would righteously belong to him, but Athena had Pandora carefully sealed and ready to be used as a bargaining chip to keep her warriors with her when the time came to negotiate the terms of the ongoing battle between them.

But in the meantime, as she looked at the expanse of time and all the worlds that inhabited those streams of time, she thought that it really was a bad idea to not keep all her warriors together. She needed a place where she could concentrate her forces for the wars to come so that she wouldn’t have to content herself with eeking out the barest of victories against the underworld.

No. She was decided to gain a victory so overwhelming, that no more wars would have to be fought, and to do that she needed to seat her power somewhere.

She needed a sanctuary.


	24. Chapter 24

Shaka woke up to the feeling of being shaken.

“Shaka? Shaka are you alright?” asked Mu on the bed next to him.

The virgo saint flinched at the light coming through the window when he opened his eyes.

“Uh? What? What happened?” he asked, sitting up. Out the window he could see the outline of all the twelve houses of the sanctuary, but for a moment he was unsure of where he was.

“You were having a nightmare,” said the Aries saint next to him and took a deep breath. “I couldn’t wake you up. I got a bit worried for a moment.”

Shaka shook his head and looked around at the room, his memories reawakening in his mind and he realized he was in the house of Aries.

“I wasn’t so much having a nightmare,” he said. “As remembering having lived a nightmare.”

“Hmm? What is that supposed to mean? Are you still not feeling well?” asked Mu, placing a hand over his forehead.

The door to the room opened and Kiki came inside, carrying a plate with a big slice of cake in it.

“Are you guys ok?” he asked, and started eating the cake.

“Kiki I’ve told you not to eat cake for breakfast!” yelled Mu.

The boy giggled and closed the door.

“But it’s so delicious!” he said, running away.

“I’m going to get that boy,” said Mu, scrambling over Shaka to get to the door.

The virgo saint smiled and hugged him by the waist, pulling him back down to the bed to kiss him.

“Leave him alone. Some cake won’t be bad for him,” he said, snuggling against his neck.

“You’re supposed to make parenting easier, not harder,” grumbled Mu, but pulled him closer. “What were you dreaming about? The war? We won.”

Shaka pressed himself flush against him.

“Hmm, in a way. I was remembering one of our previous lives.”

“We’ve met in previous lives?” asked Mu, frowning at the thought.

Shaka reached up to kiss him.

“In every single one.”

Mu’s phone started ringing on the bedside table and Shaka hugged him harder.

“Use your mind powers for good and destroy that damn thing without letting go of me,” he said.

“Sorry, can’t do that. The guys are probably waiting for us. It’s late and we’re supposed to start setting up everything for the wedding,” said Mu. “But I _can_ use my powers to answer the call without letting go of you.”

“The wedding?” asked Shaka, his memories still jumbled and mixed with the ones from his previous lives.

The phone levitated until it was floating in front of them and answered the call.

“Mu? Where the hell are you?” asked Deathmask. “We’re bringing in the cake at the hall in Starhill but it’s closed and Aphrodite is gonna end you if anything happens to the cake. He spent the whole night decorating it.”

Mu flinched.

“Sorry, sorry, I’ll be right there. Give me only a minute,” he said, and ended the call. “I forgot I had to bring the keys.”

“Is that Milo and Camus’ wedding?” asked Shaka, letting go of him.

Mu frowned and patted Shaka’s forehead.

“Of course it’s their wedding. Did you forget about their mess of an engagement?” he asked. “You don’t look too good. Maybe stay here and rest. I’ll ask someone else to play the music at the party.”

“No, I’m fine,” said Shaka, getting up from the bed and stretching. “I’ll do it. I’ll do it. It’s good that they’re finally going to get married. It took them long enough. Lifetimes of trying, in fact. When are we going to have our wedding?”

Mu froze in the middle of pulling up his pants.

“W-We?” he stuttered. “D-Do you want to marry me?”

“Of course! Pick a date!” said the Virgo saint, walking towards the bathroom. The memories of his past life would fade away in his mind as time passed, but right now the sensation of death and loss was so fresh in his mind that the feeling of Mu’s warm skin against his, the feeling of the water in the bath, and the smell of the fresh air from outside filled with a joy for this life he had been granted that he wanted to enjoy every minute of it. “Give them the keys and come back! I want to have sex!”

Mu crashed against something outside and when he peeked into the bathroom, his face was completely flushed red.

“W-What are you saying?! Don’t say it so loud,” he begged.

“Hurryyyy!”

Mu bit his lower lip, looking at Shaka naked in the bath.

“Well, the cake can wait,” he decided.


	25. Chapter 25

Aphrodite was furious, but he wasn’t going to let the whole issue with the keys and the cake ruin the special day that he had spent months planning. He supervised every single petal of every flower along with every glass and decoration. From the silver cloths dangling from the ceiling to the white carpets, ensuring his vision of a “Winterland Fantasy” theme was brought to life in the most absolute perfection.

“You did a fantastic job Aphrodite,” said Shion behind him.

The Pisces saint whirled around, a proud smirk on his face. “Of course I did. Even if _someone_ was late with the keys to finish decorating.

Mu, behind Shion and carrying Kiki on his shoulders, coughed and excused himself to go and hide somewhere.

“I like it! I like it!” said Milo, coming into the hall with Camus right behind him. “Is that the altar? Shion, I didn’t know you had white pope robes.”

“I got them made for him so he would match with the decor,” said Aphrodite, frowning at Milo and Camus. “And what the hell are you both doing here? It’s bad look to look at the bride before the ceremony.”

Milo shrugged and laughed.

“If you can point at the bride, I’ll listen,” he said.

“I’m going to go get changed,” said Camus, and walked away.

“Is he ok?” asked Shion.

“Ugh. I don’t know. He has been in a mood since this morning. I think he had nightmares all night long. I’m gonna go talk to him,” said Milo, running after him.

“I also don’t think they should be so close before the ceremony,” said Shion, narrowing his eyes at the retreating couple.

“Bad luck,” said Aphrodite, nodding. “And given our track record for parties, I wouldn’t rule out having the entire hall catch on fire. I warned the firefighters though, so they’re on alert.”

Shion rubbed at his temple.

“No. We can’t have any more fires, or arrest, or all around disasters this time, or I won’t allow any more weddings, and I have a feeling we’ll have a few more coming. Dohko! Dohko come here! I need you to keep an eye on the kids! A sober eye!”


	26. Chapter 26

Milo caught up to Camus at the back rooms of the hall, looking at his pristine while wedding suit.

“Hey there,” said Milo, closing the door behind him. “You’re going to look so regal in that.”

Camus shivered and shook his head.

“Why haven’t you gone to get changed yet?. Wasn’t Aphrodite going to do your hair before the ceremony?”

Milo hugged him from behind.

“Why are you so grumpy today of all days?” he asked him, rubbing his face against his back.

Camus relaxed some of the tension in his body, and set his palms over Milo’s hands.

“Sorry. I just had nightmares all night and I can’t get them off my head,” he said, shaking his head. Then he turned around to hold Milo’s face in his hands. “And I’m still worried about what might go wrong. I mean, just remember how badly the proposal went! We got arrested!”

Milo laughed.

“Just try not to punch any random dude and we won’t get arrested this time. I told Aphrodite to tell the firefighters to be on alert.”

“But I don’t want our wedding party to end by going up in flameslike most of our Halloween parties!”

Dohko opened the door and came inside, followed by Mu and Shaka.

“Then stop testing destiny and don’t be so close before the ceremony! You’re not even supposed to see each other’s clothes!” he said and grabbed Milo. “You, out of here. Shaka, make sure he goes to get changed. Mu, you keep an eye on Camus. And if anyone drinks even a drop of alcohol before these two are married, they’ll be washing the steps of the sanctuary with a toothbrush for the rest of the year!”

Mu came into the room with an apologetic smile.

“Do you really need help?” he asked, moving to grab the decorations for Camus’ hair. A set of pins with small crystal snowflakes and a glass brooch that seemed as if it was made of ice. “Aphrodite said you seemed a bit off. Are you really getting cold feet?”

Camus sat down on a chair and hung his head.

“No. No, of course not. I just had an awful night. Just…nightmares all night long. About being a king and dying and Milo and Hyoga and Isaak dying… It was awful. I think it might be the stress of the preparations. When you marry Shaka, don’t ask Aphrodite to organize your wedding. He’ll turn into bridezilla without actually being the bride.”

Mu’s breath caught in his throat and the hair ornaments slipped from his hands.

Camus jumped forward to catch them right before they fell and broke into a million pieces.

“Mu come on!” yelled Camus. “I have more than enough worries right night now!”

“Sorry, sorry!” said Mu, stepping away. “I just…Uhm, Shaka was having nightmares last night too and then I he asked me to marry him. Or, well, I think I proposed? Uhm, we kind of agreed to get married.”

Camus took a deep breath and set the ornaments on their boxes.

“What even are you talking about Mu? Did you propose? Or did Shaka propose?” he asked, guiding Mu towards the chair. “Sit down there. I think you’re a worse mess than me right now.”

“I kind of did? But like, by accident? And…because he asked me when we were going to get married…?” muttered Mu.

Camus took his outfit behind a screen and started getting changed.

“So he finally lost his patience with you? I think this time you really should ask Aphrodite for help. You need a ring right now. Have you thought about what he might like?”

“N-No. I don’t… I mean, do people even use rings to propose in India? Should I follow his customs? I…don’t they follow the thing where you have to ask for someone’s hand in marriage.”

Camus looked at him from over the edge of the screen.

“Actually…I think you’re right. You probably should start researching as soon as the party’s over.”

Mu covered his face with his hands.

“I can’t believe he’s fed up with waiting for me to propose, but I didn’t…I mean, I didn’t think he would care about something like that! He never said anything.”

“Or maybe you’re just obtuse?”

“What?!”

“Well, I was. It took a lot of stuff for me to figure out I should propose. Maybe you’re the same too?”

Mu slid down in the chair dejectedly.

“Probably…”


	27. Chapter 27

The guests started to arrive arriving in the afternoon, and Aphrodite hung around at the entrance to deal with any sudden emergency and let everybody know where to leave their gifts.

“What are you doing there? Isn’t everything ready?” asked Deathmask, walking towards the hall with a cigarette in his hand.

“Throw that thing away or you’re not getting into the hall,” ordered Aphrodite, looking him up and down. “We’re trying to minimize the risk of disaster. Especially fiery type of disasters, given our track record. Hmph… You look good.”

Deathmask dropped his cigarette on the floor and stepped on it.

“You didn’t think I would look good just because you didn’t choose my suit?”

Aphrodite crossed his arms over his chest.

“I so focused on the wedding I only remembered that I hadn’t helped you with your suit until this morning,” he said.

“I know. I got your messages. All thirty of them,” said Deathmask, pinching the other’s cheek. “But I had everything under control, and I look hot.”

A soft red tinted Aphrodite’s cheeks, and he pulled away from him.

“You dress up one day and think you’re the hottest of all the saints?”

“Not the hottest. Just your favorite,” said Deathmask, and placed a quick kiss on his cheek. “The hall looks amazing. You did great.”

Aphrodite beamed with pride.

“Of course it looks amazing. I wouldn’t create anything short of the most beautiful wedding party ever done.”

Deathmask laughed and rummaged into his inner pockets.

“That’s always what make it difficult to get anything for you,” he said with a laugh. “Nothing short of perfection will suffice for you. But this time, something a little short of perfection will have to be enough, because I cannot find a diamond that is as beautiful as you.”

He pulled out a small blue box from his pocket and opened it to reveal a small dainty silver ring with a cushion diamond.

Aphrodite gasped.

“W-Wha-? Deathmask…this…,” he stuttered.

“It’s not an engagement ring. I’m still planning that. Like I said, _it’s difficult_. This is just because I saw it and I thought you would like it,” said the Cancer saint, and pulled out the ring to slip into Aphrodite’s slim fingers. “And I figured you needed something nice for all your work with the wedding.”

Aphrodite opened his mouth to speak, but words wouldn’t come out so he closed it. Then he opened it again but still couldn’t speak, so he wrapped his arms around Deathmask and kissed him instead.

“Guys, come on. Don’t start making out in here,” said Shura, walking up to them. “It’s Milo’s and Camus’ day.”

Aphrodite and Deathmask finally parted, and Aphrodite threw back his head while taking out a handkerchief from his breast pocket to dab at the corners of his eyes.

“If I ruin my makeup, I’ll be pissed,” he muttered, with no actually anger to his voice.

Deathmask laughed and took out another cigarette, but Shura snatched it away from him.

“Shion sent out a message. No cigarettes, nothing flamable,” he said, pocketing the cigarette. “He doesn’t trust us after the bullshit that went on with all our halloween parties.”

“Aw come on! He also said no drinking before the ceremony. What the hell am I even going to do in the meanwhile. Hell, we could start planning _your_ wedding and be done before we’re even allowed to drink in this damn party.”

Aphrodite huffed and stuffed his handkerchief back into his breast pocket.

“No planning before he shows up with a ring,” he said.

“He already proposed.”

“He didn’t _propose_. You gave him your hand in marriage and he just took it without giving you even a ring.”

“We’re getting a baby.”

“You got a _dog_. A dog is not a baby, Shura.”

“We’re working our way up to getting a baby. We’re going slow.”

“Uhuh, so how does it go? Dog, cat, brother who is also a cat, then baby? And where is he anyway? Why are you here alone?”

“He went to walk Precious. He’ll be here soon.”

Deathmask laughed and Aphrodite covered his face.

“You named the dog Precious!” cried the Pisces saint. “Could you two be any more silly and tasteless?”

A huge husky dressed up in a tux for dogs came running up the stairs of Starhill and jumped on Aphrodite, who screamed.

“Get this dirty thing off me!” he cried. “It’s going to get my suit dirty!”

Shura grabbed the dog and pulled him away.

“Stop! Precious, stop. What is that on your mouth? What are you eating?” he asked, pulling out a small box from the dog’s mouth.

“Hopefully he’s not actually eating it!” laughed Aioros, jogging up the stairs and panting. “The traitor slipped out of his collar when I gave him the box.”

Shura wiped off the dog drool from the box and opened it to find a silver engagement ring with a triangular diamond inside.

“I didn’t know how to give it to you, so I thought having Precious give it to you would be funnier,” said Aioros.

“Proposals aren’t meant to be funny” cried Aphrodite. Deathmask covered his mouth and pulled him away to give Shura and Aioros some privacy.

“Do you like it?” asked Aioros, cupping Shura’s hands within his own. “It seemed sharp and elegant and unique, just like you.”

Tears fell from Shura’s eyes and into their joint hands.

“You didn’t have to do this,” said Shura with a choked voice.

Aioros laughed and kissed away his tears.

“But I wanted you to have it,” he said. “I watched a bunch of shows about weddings and proposals and I want it all for us. All of it. I want us to have all those dreams that normal people have for themselves.”

Shura fell against him and cried against his chest.


	28. Chapter 28

Rhadamanthys woke up late. Very late. And then he went to get ready while making sure that he didn’t wake Kanon up, who finally woke up out of his own accord a few hours later.

“Rhada?” he called from the bedroom, while Rhadamanthys enjoyed his second cup of coffee in the kitchen, a self satisfied smirk firmly on his lips. “Rhada what time is it?”

“I don’t know. I left my watch on the bedside table,” he answered back, focusing on the reports he was reading.

Rhadamanthys heard Kanon shuffle around the bed for a while, and then the silence that he recognized as the silence before the storm.

“RHADA IT’S SO LATE! WHY DIDN’T YOU WAKE ME UP?! WE WON’T MAKE IT TO THE WEDDING!” yelled Kanon, jumping from the bed and running to the bathroom to shower.

On his way there, he saw Rhadamanthys was already mostly dressed and he stalked up to him and shoved his watch into the Wyvern’s chest.

“You did this on purpose,” he said.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” lied Rhadamanthys.

“You thought you could just not wake me up and we would miss the wedding, uh? Well, no luck there buddy.”

“I had a hope of missing your brother.”

“Asshole,” said Kanon, pinching his cheek. “Go get ready. I’ll be out in ten minutes. What will I ever do with you?”

Rhadamanthys moved his head to the side and placed a soft kiss on Kanon’s hand.

“You could start by staying here and never going up to the sanctuary ever again.”

“Wouldn’t you love that?” said Kanon. “Hurry up little Lord, we have a wedding to go to.”

He placed a kiss on Rhadamanthys’ forehead and rushed to the shower.

The wyvern sat where he was for a moment, caught in a memory that he was sure he had never lived. A memory of Kanon speaking to him just like that, years and years ago. Far more years than he had lived.

 _“Are you some little Lord?”_ his voice had asked, in a life he hadn’t lived.

Or had he?

He stood up and walked to the window, looking outside into the dark expanses of the underworld. He felt the barriers of his reincarnation blur just a little, one into the other.

“What do you want, you pest?” he asked, knowing who was allowing the memories from those lives to merge.

He turned around and saw a completely white woman. While hair, white skin, white dress. A pure white stain in the fabric of reality. She looked up, and regarded him with eyes that were one white and one gray.

“Ah, I’m just so satisfied with how it all has turned out,” she said, speaking with a thousand voices, and the sound of them made Rhadamanthys dizzy and confused. He leaned against the wall. “All of my vows have come true. Even you, whose existence was begged and paid for.”

“So my life was requested? That’s a funny thing. I can’t imagine anyone requesting I come back,” he said.

The goddess smirked at him, and vanished.

Kanon came out of the shower.

“What are you doing there? I told you to get ready! If we mess up the wedding, Saga will be the least of our problems. Aphrodite will want to tear a our heads off,” he said.

Rhadamanthys rolled his eyes and followed him to the bedroom.


	29. Chapter 29

Saori sat down next to Seiya and observed the white decorations all around them. It truly seemed like a fantasy winterland brought forth from a world of magic, and the more she looked at it, the more she thought that it triggered memories in her that she didn’t understand.

She sighed and closed her eyes. Athena’s presence inside her had brought her many challenges, but she had come to make peace with it. Such was the will of the gods, and when it aligned with the good of the world and with the preservation of life, you really couldn’t ask for more from the fates.

Even if she still found herself traversing a land of white and gray in her dreams, routinely seeing the resting bodies of all those vessels for the goddess that had come before her. Dozens and hundreds and so many that it caused despair to the heart to even try to see all those ladies and all those girls touched by a divine fate that spelled doom for them, no matter who won the battle.

Some with tears in their eyes, some with blood in their hands, the expanse of life claimed in service of humanity was almost overwhelming to see.

Saori’s heart despaired even more whenever she thought about how, in the end, she would take her place among them.

“Are you feeling ok?” asked Seiya next to her, and Saori opened her eyes.

“Hm? Yes, everything’s fine,” she said, setting her hand over his. There was a warmth in his skin that had slowly faded from her, and for a moment she wondered if all those women she had seen would also have such deathly cold hands as she did.

The music in the hall started playing, and Shaka asked everyone to start taking their seats.

Something bright and joyous and divine started shining inside Saori, and it felt like a great light at the back of her mind. She scoffed out a laugh.

“What is it?” asked Seiya.

“Athena wants to see the ceremony,” she said, a small smile pulling at the corner of her lips. “Can you believe it?”

Seiya squeezed her hand.

“It always leaves you so exhausted to let her come through,” he said.

“It’s ok. It’s important to her,” said Saori, and closed her eyes away, taking her hand away from Seiya’s and folding them in her lap. “She made a lot of promises that are being fulfilled now.”

Saori let her mind go silent, allowing that light inside her to flow forward.

 _“All vows of the heavens are fulfilled,”_ said Athena, and her voice inside Saori’s mind was the voice of all those women’s she had seen. A cacophony of words becoming a melody of a message.

She couldn’t help but smile as she felt herself falling into unconsciousness, letting Athena take over.

It was really a beautiful day for a wedding, and if the gods wanted to see it, they could do so.


	30. Chapter 30

Rhadamanthys and Kanon arrived almost last, following Saga and Aioria as they came into the hall.

“That’s such a tiny present! You didn’t even try!” said Kanon. Next to him, Rhadamanthys carried a gift box almost as tall as him.

“What did you even bring in that thing?” asked Saga, carrying a perfectly reasonable sized gift box.

Kanon stuck out his tongue at him and held on to Rhadamanthys’ arm.

“It’s a surprise. What did _you_ get them on that pocket sized box?” he asked.

“A flower vase. Gods, Kanon, it’s a wedding. Did you bring them a monster from the underworld? Oh, no, that’s just Rhadamanthys, sorry,” said Saga, smirking.

Rhadamanthys growled, but didn’t take the bait.

Dohko shooed the into the hall. “Hurry, hurry, we’re about to start. And remember, no drinking, no flamable things, and nothing that is on fire. You can go wild after the ceremony, but let’s get these two married first,” he said, guiding the four of them to their seats.

“They _cannot_ go wild after the ceremony,” said Shion, walking in after them. “I’m tired of getting damage reports every time someone throws a party.”

“What are you doing here? Off to the altar. Shoo. I’ll take care of everything here,” said Dohko, pushing him towards the front of the hall.

Because they couldn’t figure out which of them should stay at the altar and which one should come into the hall, both Camus and Milo stood at the altar when the ceremony started.

Shion gave a quick and severe look around the hall, willing everyone to behave and not bring the whole place down in a fiery hell before starting to speak.

The ceremony proceeded without any problems.


	31. Chapter 31

**Author’s notes:**

Reincarnation is a funny thing. Funny in the sad sense, I’d say. I believe in it in a strange way. I’ve always seen it as a sort of inevitability. I don’t know if it’s because I was into studying Buddhism and Hinduism for so many years, but somehow it feels like I’ve always viewed it with the same dread you feel towards painful things you know are coming.

When doctors tell me “This won’t hurt”, I get the same feeling as when I think of reincarnation. “It’s gonna happen, and it’s gonna suck.”

I tried to project a part of that feeling into these series of stories. The feeling of despair and of entrapment. Of hopelessness despite having to go on. I don’t know how it came out, but I’m glad I explored this.

The whole idea for the Melody (sub)series started when I wrote Ice Melody, and I wanted to play a bit with the concept of reincarnation where you basically end up doing the same things again because you are in essence the same person making the same decisions and falling into the same mistakes.

It is an idea that has always attracted me, but that has been on my mind a lot lately due to a lot of things that I’ve been going through. The other day I was chatting with someone and this person told me _“I see him and it’s like I’m seeing his father. And I worry about his son. I’m afraid he will become the same as them.”_ And her words set me thinking about a biblical concept that I’ve always wrestled with (I’m kind of a religions buff. I love to study all religions) which is that it was said that “the sins of the fathers are passed on to the children for three and four generations” (Numbers 14 18? I think?).

That is often seen as punishment being handed down generations to innocent and unsuspecting children. I used to see it that way. But the more I think about it and the more I see other people’s relationships with their families, the more I think it might be a case of children repeating the patterns of their parents again and again. Thus, in essence, the sin and the punishment (suffering) caused by the sin would repeat themselves throughout generations.

It is a concept that I think I would like to keep exploring in other stories.

Especially since I think I didn’t manage to portray it very accurately here. I wanted this series to give the reader a sense of doomed fate brought about by seeing the characters doing the same things that we have seen before happening with doomed results.

Saga especially was a character that I don’t think I managed to portray very well. I hovered between writing him too heavy handed and being too mysterious in his motives, so that I ended up not being pleased with his portrayal, but now I don’t know how to fix it. What I wanted him to show was him doing the same things he did in the original anime. He has Shura kill Aioros, he takes over an institution through deceit, he betrays everyone he loves, and even locks up Kanon. In this story he did all of that because he was following the timelines that he remembered and was looking to align events in a way that would lead them to victory against the underworld. But whether his intentions were good or bad, he still ended up causing massive suffering, especially to those who loved him.

Originally, my plan was to have a fic called “Blood Melody” which would be about Rhada and Kanon only, which would be the final setup for the final “All The Songs In The World” fic which would focus on Mu and Shaka while tying up all of the plot points of the previous installments. But the more I plotted, the more I realized that I didn’t have enough plot to be able to write Blood Melody as its own fic, so I scrapped the idea and ended up just inserting the rhadakanon plot into Songs. Although I think I would have liked to be able to write the story in the way I had first envisioned it. Maybe I’ll try to write these concepts and this type of plot into an original story. I don’t know. I just feel like these are ideas and emotions that I would like to revisit later on.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, thanks for reading and for further writing updates (and my blog) you can go to alexdamien.wordpress.com  
> Or you can find me on wattpad as @alxdamien. I'm working on posting all my fics over there, but it's taking a while because...I have a lot of fanfics to post...  
> Also, please consider leaving a comment if you enjoyed this. It would mean a lot to me.


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